I really want to go to med school but i know a lot of people who didnt get in and ended up trying to find another small job. Is it smart to choose bio or some other major for med? Also, how hard is organic chem? Thanks
You can major in any field and still go to med school so long as you have completed all the required re-reqs. I know people with majors in agriculture, electrical engineering, Spanish, English lit, sociology, theology/religious studies, and even music theory & performance who have gone on to med school.
Most pre meds major in biology, biochem or chemistry because there is a large overlap with those majors and med school pre-reqs. It makes their schedules easier to plan.
There are jobs for bio majors who don’t go to med school–some require additional training or education; some don’t. Google “biology major jobs” and you’ll see plenty of other jobs listed. But the onus is on you to make yourself a attractive hire to future employers. Learning some computer skills and statistics will help. So will completing a internship in industry. State and federal governments also hire bio majors for a variety of jobs.
Choose a major you like (because students who enjoy their majors do better academically) and one that will allow you to maintain a high GPA that’s needed for med school admissions. But also keep in mind your post-graduation employability because as you note each year 60% of med school applicants don’t get accepted anywhere.
OChem is different from anything you’ve studied in high school. It requires a different set of skills. Memorization alone won’t enable you to pass. There’s just way too much material. You need to have good 3-D visualization skills, a strong understanding of polar geometry and basics of atomic theory, the ability to generalize broad rules from a limited set of examples, and the discernment to know when the rules don’t apply and why. (Or, you can learn OChem the way my older physics major daughter did–by learning quantum mechanics first. D1 said that OChem was simple and obvious once you understood quantum. ) D2’s assessment (she wasn’t a physics major) was that OChem was tough but do-able if you put the time in.
Thank you! What’s your opinion on public health as a major?
It depends. What exact constitutes a public health undergrad degree varies widely from college to college. Most programs don’t require any math, chemistry, or physics and focus on public health from a purely sociological, environmental or public policy perspective. So it depends what specific program you’re talking about.
Public health is also more typically a graduate degree program and many jobs require a MPH for consideration. Undergrad PH degrees are fairly recent phenomenon so I don’t know what the job outlook is like.
PH can be viable major for a pre-med–just like any other major can be, but you need to make sure any science/math courses you take for your degree are the same as those taken by science majors and not “Chemistry for the Social Sciences” or “Chemistry in Environmental Studies” or something similar. Those latter ones will not accepted as fulfilling the pre-reqs for medical school admissions.
If you find public health interesting & compelling–then go for it!