I am a high school senior and there are about a couple months until I begin college. I’ve been accepted to many colleges and listed my major as Biology because of my parents (mostly my dad-- but both want me to go to med school). I am a first generation child, with parents that didn’t have the opportunity to go to college. Knowing that I did not know what I wanted to do/major in, my parents forced biology because of the fantasy of their oldest daughter going to med school. I have no interest in med school, but I wanted to give biology a chance. After doing some research, I’m feeling pretty skeptical about biology. I’ve noticed that there are 1) too many bio majors who don’t make it to med school 2) terrible job prospects and pay 3) loads or work and memorization for a degree that doesn’t even give great pay/jobs. Furthermore, I am currently taking AP Biology in high school (double period, ugh) and that class seriously drains me out. I don’t know if it’s the teacher or that it’s double period, but I really cannot comprehend everything. Even though I got an A in the class, it just requires memorization and at the end of the day I truly do not understand anything (the teacher rambles and talks for the beginning of class, then rushes the material). Even after self studying biology many times, I still cannot find myself interested and fascinated by it. I just feel even more stressed that this is what I listed my major as on ALL my college apps. I know I can change it, but I’m just scared to talk to my parents about it. My parents want me to be a STEM major, which is understandable. I totally get that. But I’m just turned off by biology. I just don’t know what I’m interested in. I’ve never had a subject that I was always good at like most people. I’ve always gotten A’s through out high school. I’ve only learned to get good grades, which hindered me from discovering my passion (if I had one).
The only part of Biology I slightly enjoyed was genetics. Since my dad was so stuck on bio, I tried to compromise with it to myself and thought about looking into genetic counseling. I just don’t know. I feel hopeless…
I’ve always enjoyed my AP Lang & Lit classes and all my AP history classes… but majoring in English or History or something like that is completely out of the picture.
I just don’t know what to do, or what to major in. I feel like I’m overthinking this and I’m overwhelmed by everything right now but college is right around the corner and I really have 0 time to waste. I haven’t talked to my parents about majoring in Bio since November, and I don’t even want to bring it up…
You claim that majoring in English or history is out of the question, but how come?
Since you don’t know your passion yet, I suggest you stick with the bio major for now and try out a variety of general ed courses. See what’s a good fit for you and then make the switch.
If there’s a good chance that you might stick with bio, you can hold off on telling your parents. But if you do plan to switch, you should let them know sooner rather than later.
There are several issues :
1- biology is one of the least employable majors. English or history are actually better in that respect.
2- what universities have you applied to? Many admit by college - meaning you could switch majors with any other major offered in the college. Many universities also admit you, period, regardless of major, and there you’re not expected to declare a major till sophomore year.
3- freshman year, like all freshmen, you’ll take a variety of general education classes. In all likelihood, your first semester, you’ll have one math class, one bio class, one English class, one foreign language or art class, one social science /history class. Take it from there.
4- the key to med school is to find the major of can be best at. Medical schools only expect two biology classes as part of their pre-reqs.
5- I recommend reading a first generation blog, AFrenchie36 on Tumblr.
Don’t major in Biology if you already have reservations. My friends daughter was a pre-med bio major at Cornell, and 70% of the class failed the first exam. At my daughters school, 50% of the class failed the first exam. If your heart isn’t in it, the massive amounts of strict memorization in Biology 1 will be your immediate downfall as you will absolutely hate it. The weed out classes are absolutely brutal in engineering and science majors like Biology. And like I said, if your goal is an ultra competitive college like Cornell, the competition for those A’s and B’s will be absolutely brutal.
It really depends on how your school is structured. If you’re in the college of Arts/Letters and Science, it can be quite easy to switch to another major WITHIN that college, but if you want to switch to a major in another college such as Business or Engineering you might actually have to apply again.
@adoxography Allow me to just address what appears to be the root of the problem here.
Let me just say, as a current medical student who is currently loving medical school, has never felt a greater sense of purpose and satisfaction in his life, and can’t imagine being happy doing anything else in his life aside from medicine…
…no one should ever go into medicine if they have no interest in it. Under any circumstances. Ever. Period. No exceptions.
No one who has not gone to medical school and working as a physician in America has any business telling anyone else to go to medical and work as a physician in America, not even their child. That’s because no one outside of American medicine understands all of the sacrifices that physicians in America make, not even if all of their friends are physicians, they’re married to a physician, and all of their parents and grandparents and great grandparents are physicians. Feel free to tell your parents to read this. Common poor and misguided reasons to pursue medicine:
Money. All that the public sees is the large attending salary. They do not see what is often a $240,000-$400,000 cost of attending medical school (including housing and dining), which often is paid for by loans that accumulate 6.5% interest annually, such that physicians may end up repaying double the value of the original loans (depending on their loan repayment plan) by the time they are debt-free. Not to mention the $60k-$70k salary x 3-7y of your residency (more if you take a research track program), which is simply not going to be enough to pay the bills as well as repay the loans in many parts of the country. Which sadly often leads medical students to choose specialties with higher compensation, rather than the specialties that they would truly most enjoy. A great recipe for burn out, which leads to my next point:
Burnout. Take a look at the national surveys. Around ~50% of physicians in most specialties report feeling burned out. When you consider the fact that some physicians work up to 110h work weeks (poor neurosurgeons), this is a not a good profession to get burned out in.
Prestige. When you’re working the aforementioned 110h work weeks, prestige will do you little good when you’re struggling to get enough sleep, much less socialize.
Life satisfaction. Attending physician, resident, and medical student depression and suicide are huge problems. As are pre-med depression and suicide. As a former RA, I’ve seen many many times the ripe recipe for disaster that is parents forcing their child to be a pre-med, almost invariably leading to that child suffering from serious psychosocial (and, by natural extension, biomedical) health problems.
All that being said, I love medicine. If you feel so inclined, you may want to find some time to shadow various different specialties, and maybe you’ll actually find out that you’ve fallen in love with one of them. A good place to start, based on your OP, might be medical genetics.
I know I can change it, but I’m just scared to talk to my parents about it. My parents want me to be a STEM major, which is understandable. I totally get that. But I’m just turned off by biology. I just don’t know what I’m interested in. I’ve never had a subject that I was always good at like most people. I’ve always gotten A’s through out high school. I’ve only learned to get good grades, which hindered me from discovering my passion (if I had one).