I’m currently a Biology Major right now and I feel like some of the course requirements for my school does not suit me. Examples of these courses fall among the lines of plant studies and plant care.
I want to switch over to the health science major, but I was told that it was looked down upon by dental schools in comparison to Biology Majors. Health Science at my University focuses more on research and public health more than Biology, hence the reason why I want to switch. Anyways, is Health Science being looked down upon true?
It’s true that typically “Health Sciences” as a major results in less success for graduate schools, BUT if your school includes significant science work then it should be okay - your transcript will be looked at based on classes taken, not name of major. You should complement it with Mammal biology, neuroscience, biochemistry, as it seems less science-based and more policy-oriented, and try to add som ethics class.
@MYOS1634
My d is freshman with current major of Genetics. There is also a Human Biology major. Her issue is that she took AP Calc AB as a junior in high school, then decided to try AP Computer science instead of AP Calc BC. She did well in Calc but hated CS. Now we have the situation that she took calc over a year ago. She is considering taking Calc I again and then Calc II in college. She is pre-med. However, people do change their minds.
If she switches to Human Bio major (does not req. calc 2), do you know how grad schools would view that?
Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.
It’s better if she retakes calc1 anyway, for the MCAT. But Human Biology is a good major, no problem there.
I will share info with her. I think she is considering re-taking Cal 1 and then taking Calc 2 so that she has more options available to her. From my college years, I recall that business majors had to take a year of “business” calc (known to be easier version of calc than the series for science and math majors). Also- i am thinking science grad schools may want that background. She might even consider engineering if she changes her mind on med school. I think it would give her more options if she changes her mind about med school. The alternative is taking an additional Stat class for med-school. However, she took AP Stat as a sophomore in HS and easily got a 5 on the test, so I am not sure of the value of taking more Stat for the MCAT.
Actually, now the key would be statistics. 1 semester of calculus is generally sufficient, but biostats (different from AP Stats) are crucial both for MCAT and medical research, and one more semester of biostats would be very useful (intro to bioinformatics is also big). Or Biostats and another stats class that’s more applied to business.