I haven’t begun college yet, but currently my major is Health Sciences. The science/math classes I signed up to take are General Biology, Introductory Chemistry, and College Algebra. I would like to become either an anesthesiologist or a pediatrician (Leaning towards pediatrician because I haven’t looked too much into Anesthesiology). But I’m a little concerned because I often read on here and on other sites that Health Sciences is a “useless” major and has no real job prospects. I am not too strong in math or science, but I’d rather struggle in a STEM major so that I will be able to obtain a great paying job if I don’t get into medical school. Any suggestions for majors that are really good for the world and job prospects? Or any majors that maybe aren’t too heavily based on STEM work that would suffice for a decent job?
The thing to keep in mind with these “lucrative” majors is that if you don’t like what you’re doing, you’d be miserable if you did have to fall back on it. If you’re looking purely for lucrative majors, you’re looking at fields like computer science, nursing, and engineering. But again, I really don’t recommend any of these fields unless you genuinely enjoy them, because you’ll be miserable if you don’t.
For med school in particular, you really should major in something you’ll genuinely enjoy. GPA is a very important factor for med school admissions, and you have a better chance of getting a high GPA if you genuinely enjoy your classes. And if you struggle in a major you don’t enjoy, you’re potentially restricting yourself from med school due to a lower GPA (depending on how low it is, of course), plus you’d be miserable. Personally I don’t think that’s worth it just for a fallback major.
I suggest considering these occupational tracks:
Environmental Health Specialist. All county governments employ Environmental Health Specialists to inspect restaurants, etc. For this you should take the prerequisites your state requires in order to take the state exam for licensing as an Environmental Health Specialist. The majors that fit well are biology, environmental science and health science.
Operations Research Analyst. Persons in this occupation work on improving a company’s or organization’s operations through quantitative analysis. Considerable growth in the number of these jobs is expected (http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_102.htm). Mathematics seems to be the obvious major for this, although other quantitative majors should work.
Environmental Laboratory Analyst. Both drinking and wastewater throughout the country have to be constantly monitored for compliance with regulatory requirements by laboratories. Chemistry is the best major for this, although biology and environmental science can also get you into it.
A health profession less illustrious than physician, such as Physician’s Assistant (considerable growth in number of jobs is expected) and Clinical Lab Technologist. These require post-graduate study, but obviously not as much as medical school. A major which includes the prerequisites that the professional program requires makes for efficiency, so health science or biology.
People say “STEM majors” as if they were all the same for your career, but in reality Math, Engineering, and CS make money, and biology/Health science majors don’t have good prospects at all. In addition, you need a great GPA for med school, but you do need a decent GPA for a job, and if your GPA is below 3.0 many internships are closed to you.
If you’re not too strong at science, take EITHER biology or chemistry. Plan to take Bio 101 in the Fall, Chem 101 and Bio 102 in the Spring, and Chem 102 over the summer, for instance. Taking both at the same time is likely too much.
You should be taking
- Biology or Chemistry (what you feel you got the best preparation in) + lab
- English composition
- Psychology (counts for premed core)
- Math
- art, history, foreign language or a social science/diversity gen ed (see if, for instance, they offer “history of medicine”)
- a one-credit freshman seminar
Since you got into Barrett, take English, Psych, foreign language, and the one-credit seminar within Barrett, but take Bio/Chem and Math in the regular college.
Go to office hours systematically, with your outlined homework/textbook, and ask questions about things that seemed a bit confusing in the problems/readings/lecture.
No, you wouldn’t. Number one, because students who struggle in these majors don’t get the great paying jobs. Although math and engineering and computer science have higher overall average salaries, these companies want to hire people who write good code or can do excellent modeling. If you are not doing well in your classes and not learning the material, companies are not going want to hire you.
Be pragmatic, but play to your strengths. There’s no reason you can’t continue to major in health sciences but be creative - like minor in computer science and think about bioinformatics, or get strong in math classes and think about epidemiology or biostatistics, or go into genetic counseling, or double major in physics and think about medical physics, or go into community health or health promotion or health education…there are lots of jobs (both science and non-science) in and around the health field.
That said, I think the answer to this depends on what you mean by “great paying” and what kind of skills and experiences you are willing to develop in college.