<p>Im a 16 male high school junior who is confused about what to do with his life. Until this year, I was 100% sure I wanted to be an ortho. This year, I've changed my mind around 1000 times. </p>
<p>I am a pretty good student. 4.5 GPA in arguably a top 5 school in Florida. I am not a natural at science, but now that Im putting considerable effort in physics honors, I have an A with a horrible but hard grading teacher. Im good at math and history, so one of my options was law, but I find the actual job working boring while I find the college workload exciting for me.</p>
<p>I want to be an ortho because I've always been getting hurt, so I want to help people as well as interact with people which I like. I also like the "doctor's office" setting as a work place. I dont want to work in a cubicle and do paperwork all day like a lawyer would do. But Im kind of worried about tough science courses. I want to get to a good medical school and feel like I would do extremely well once there but kind of worried about organic chemistry, etc. </p>
<p>So I want to know a couple of things:</p>
<ol>
<li>What are some common majors for a doctor/ortho?
Is it reccomended for it to be biology/chemistry/physics? </li>
<li>If your major is for example biology, are all or most of your classes science courses, or do you get to take other types of classes too?</li>
<li>As for colleges, my options staying in Florida would be U of Miami(1 hour away from home), Nova Southeastern (20 minutes away), or University of Florida (5 hours away). Which of these do you recommend?
Or would it be better to go out of state to go to a better school?</li>
<li>Also, what classes should I take in high school?
Took Honors Biology freshman year (A's both quarters)
I took AP Spanish Speakers and AP Psychology Sophomore Year (both 5's) and chemistry honors (B's both quarters)
This year Im taking AP Calculus, AP American History, AP Human Geography and Anatomy and Physiology as well as physics honors.</li>
</ol>
<p>Should I take AP Bio next year or would AP Physics be better to take this year?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for the responses, and if you want to add any additional info, feel free.</p>
<p>I’ll second GA2012MOM’s advice to read the intro threads. Lots of good info there.</p>
<p>But the short version is that none of that really matters all that much. Sure, it might have some minor effect on your application to med school, but really, your major and where you went to school don’t matter. So major in what you like and go to school at the school you like the most and which will leave you with the least debt. (you’ll rack up enough of that in med school, believe me - especially by the time you get there)</p>
<p>As for question 4, the courses you take in high school couldn’t matter less. Once you get to college, you’ll realize that AP courses aren’t actually “college level”, which is why med schools don’t care about them.</p>
<p>heres some things that have helped other premeds at my school:</p>
<p>in small labs where the grade is on a curve, sabotage others experiments without being detected! any person down, means you are up! even better if the person you sabotaged was a pre-med but anyone will do! cell biology lab is the best type of lab to do this in, but microbiology and analytical chemistry are also wonderful for this purpose.</p>
<p>if you’re wrong, you’re not wrong, its the professor/TA’s fault. take up others time and beg for points. do so in lab especially, even better if its a chemistry lab where time’s precious.</p>
<p>memorize everything, no need for calculations, those are for people with critical thinking. </p>
<p>major in communications to boost GPA, can’t have science classes dragging down that GPA! also so you can take up space in lab that otherwise would have gone to a biology/biochemistry/BME/chemistry/chemical engineering major who had it for a major requirement.</p>
<p>cheating is only cheating if you are detected. even if detected by another student, cash payments usually make the problem go away.</p>
<p>Good that you like math. Use math / analytical skills in your science classes and you will start loving them more. It is much more efficient way. However, in a future, in classes like Bio and Orgo and much more Anatomy, you will need to memorize, it is unavoidable. </p>
<p>Take as much Bio in HS as possible. D. took Honors and AP and started at college with the very first Bio (no skipping). All college Bio classes have been extremely challenging, including the very first semester of it, known at her school as weed out killer. And it did weed out good number of Honors kids. </p>
<p>Major in anything of your personal interest or have combo major/minor as most pre-meds at D’s school do. She has Music minor, having great fun with it, very relaxing. </p>
<p>This is from prospective of my D’s experience who is graduating in May from her UG and has been accepted to few Medical Schools.</p>
<p>My point isnt getting across. I dont want to take the easy way out. I want to learn as much as possible and I know that I will excel at anything I put proper effort in. If I decide to persue medicine, I will give Science classes a major priority and do well. But if I have bio, chem, physics, and another one at the same time, it would be pretty hard.
And thanks MiamiDAP. That was great advice. I am just not too familiar with the major system. When you choose a major, Im assuming you need to complete all of the requierements for that major, so if I choose let’s say Economics as a major (which I won’t). I would have to complete the economics requierements as well as the Pre-Med requierements?
So wouldn’t it be quicker to become a Bio or Chem major and complete those requierements as well as the Med School requierements at the same time?
Or does an Economics Major cover for the most part the Pre-Med part?</p>
<p>If you major in economics you’ll have to complete all the pre-med required classes, and there is very little overlap. It’s almost like a double major. If you major in biology or chemistry you will have a great deal of overlap. However, it is important to major in something you like. Many people major in something other than bio or chem and have no problem completing the required classes. The most important thing is to create a situation in which you’ll be happy and thrive, as getting into medical school is a long haul.</p>