In a major bind. Knowledgeable advice needed.

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>Let me start by explaining my situation in its full context.</p>

<p>I am an entering premed transfer student who planned on taking a year of biology and a year of organic chemistry at Berkeley to strengthen my medical school application. This was actually stated explicitly on a medical school's website to indicate how transfer student applicants are evaluated.</p>

<p>However, not completing the aforementioned courses seemed to have put me very far behind; about two semesters behind compared to the entering public health transfer student.</p>

<p>This did not seems to be an issue until I began to hear about the limited number of semesters that entering (single major) transfer students are allowed to complete while at Berkeley and the upper limit of units a student can have before becoming ineligible to declare a public health major.</p>

<p>I am interested in pursuing a major in public health, but I will not have the lower division course work completed, nor the ability to declare the major, until one year from now in the summer. Conversely, I have completed IGETC so I could fill up on electives and other requirements for graduation in the mean time.</p>

<p>What had originally seemed to be an act of diligence in anticipation of my long term goals seems to have actually led me astray to the very complicated situation I am in now.</p>

<p>Frankly I do not really care what I major in, I was simply attracted to the public health major because it encompasses requirements that I am truly interested in. </p>

<p>Given the nature of my situation, should I be concerned about going over the unit limit to declare the public health major? </p>

<p>What other possible options do I have (excluding the possibility of returning to junior college)?</p>

<p>Any other advice?</p>

<p>Thank you to those who are able to contribute.</p>

2

<p>You may have to compare your already completed course work with the prerequisites for various majors to see which you can declare now or after one semester.</p>

<p>Linguistics has just one prerequisite course, Linguistics 100.</p>

3

<p>As ucbalumnus said, find something that you can do and finish the requirements for in the next two years so that you can at least leave Berkeley with a BA or BS. Medical schools do not care what you major in as long as you have a GPA of at least 3.5 and a 30 or better on the MCAT. I majored in Astrophysics as an undergraduate and am a practicing physician now.</p>

<p>Once you get your degree, if you still want to go to medical school there are post-bac programs offered by a number of good universities where you can fulfill all of the prerequisites for medical school and many students get into medical schools after completing these programs that can be one to two years.</p>

<p>The problem you are having is a common one in California. Medical schools supposedely do not want applicants to take their medical school prerequisites at community colleges and after you transfer to a UC they will not let you stay long enough to finish the requirements for your major and do the medical school prerequisites at a four year school.</p>