I’m a rising senior, planning to ED Cornell Human Ecology with a pre med track.
I am struggling between their Nutritional Science and their Global and Public Health Science major. I am interested in both, and I have no idea of what specialty of doctor I want to be.
Also, I was thinking about becoming a Registered Dietitian before applying to Med school. if I’m majoring in NS. Is that a good idea? Why and Why not?
What is your purpose for becoming a RD?
Becoming a RD requires more than just earning your BS degree. To become a RD, you need to pass a national licensing exam and complete a 1 year supervised internship/clinical practicum post graduation.
If you want to be doctor, why the detour? Becoming a RD will not enhance your med school application and will delay applying by at least a year.
Becoming a registered dietician may cause adcomms to ask the question: If you want to be a doctor, then why have you spend all the time & effort becoming a RD?
Like nurses and other allied healthcare professionals, RDs are expected to have spent time actually working full time in their field of training before applying to med school so that they have actual first hand knowledge and experience to answer the question: “why med school and not_______?”
Bad idea.
Totally NOT an issue. Even first and second year med students have difficulty answering that question. You won’t really decide on a specialty until 2 things have happened: 1) you know what your USMLE scores look like (because some specialties require very high STEP scores for entry; 2) you’ve completed your basic clinical rotations during MS3 and have had in-depth, hands on exposure to a wide variety of medical & surgical specialties.
Thank you for your response.
Then should I go to global health instead of nutritional science, since I’m not trying to be a RD? Is it better for a premed to do global health or nutritional science?
@zyllll52110 , I’m a Cornell alum who graduated with a BS in Nutritional Science with a Community Health concentration. I was perusing information about the Global Health major that did not exist when I attended. Both majors appear to be viable options for premed studies since they both involve the rigorous life and other science prerequisites.
Just so you know, I never followed up on my RD licensure partly because teaching nutrition in community settings did not require me to become an RD at that time and partly because I sought a Masters degree in Education instead of Public Health (plans change :)).
So…I am not going to say that one choice is better than the other. And I did know students who completed their BS in Nutritional Science who went on to medical school.
An aside: My husband is a doctor who had served on the admissions committee at his medical school. He said undergraduate major had less bearing on acceptance than other factors. I’m just going to leave this here.
Another aside: I switched colleges from Arts & Sciences to Human Ecology for the Nutrition major, and I loved the closer-knit program in HumEc.
Good luck with your choice!
Major in whatever field interests you more.
So long as you have completed all your med school pre-reqs, your major has little bearing of getting a a med schools admission.
Nutrition might offer you better employment prospects should you not get a med schools acceptance but the choice is really up to you.