I will be attending UCLA this fall as a bio major. I chose this major because I took bio classes for 3 years in hs and loved every aspect of the subject (depth, learning about the life processes, labs). My first exposure to psychology was this past school year (senior year) when I took ap psych, and I found it to be absolutely fascinating.
I have recently found out that UCLA offers a psychobiology major and I am now considering switching majors, but I don’t want to make a hasty decision before getting more info. (I know that they have almost the same pre-reqs, but I want to know my major going into UCLA)
How much “biology” is in psychobiology? Which major will prepare me better for dental school, which is my ultimate goal? Which major is overall “better”?
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
I’m too lazy to do a new write-up so I’ll copy and paste from another post I did:
I can speak about psychobio since that was my major. In a nutshell, it’s one of the largest and even the upper division classes can have over 200 students. But I liked the flexibility as far as what classes you can take as electives and the variety of disciplines of psychology you can learn about. Multiple choice exams are the main way you are assessed. Same requirements as other pre-med majors with the exception of Psych 100A and 100B which tend to get a bad rep. After that you hit the upper divs, probably the majority of which don’t count towards your science GPA for med school. I had a great experience overall, and honestly wasn’t stressed out too often. Some of my favorite classes and professors were from the psych department. PM me if you have further questions.
As far as how much biology there is, generally it won’t go too in-depth (as in you won’t be studying at the molecular level) besides 115/116/119E from the courses I took, although most other core classes/electives will intertwine biology in some way. I would probably give a slight edge to biology as better prep for dental school, from skimming the requirements it looks like they make you take biochem and a few lab-based courses, but once you’re there I would think you pretty much re-learn everything. Though you can choose from a lot of electives as a psychobio major, whether you want more psych or bio based. Lots of research opportunities available in each major. Psych faculty is strong.