<p>There are hospitals nearby, plus across the bay is UCSF which used to be Cal’s med school before it was split off to its own campus (similar to how the southern annex was split off to create the UCLA campus and the Cal farm was split to make the Davis campus). Alta Bates, Kaiser and other hospital complexes nearby, plus tons of basic research that supports medicine happens on campus. Ask here whether the pre-meds here feel they were limited in access to research and volunteer opportunities.</p>
<p>thanks mech, definitely something to consider now…</p>
<p>do you recommend taking bio1a/1al/physics 7a at the same time? i met with an advisor and since i’m minoring in cs, i have to put some of these major classes together…and i’m a little worried since i heard bio1a is incredibly hard and i also hate physics lol.</p>
<p>@insertname: no, don’t do it. you’re going to want to take bio 1a/l in a semester with the least amount technical classes, it’s very time-consuming if you want to do well.</p>
<p>ok that is what i thought. when exactly can i declare the MCB major? i finished chem1a, finishing chem3a/3al this sem, finishing bio1b summer, chem3b/3bl fall, then bio1a/1al spring. the advisor said i need to have finished physics to be able to declare…but i read on the site that you dont need to.</p>
<p>there should be a specific process to declare. you do it online anyways so you should be able to judge when you can declare.</p>
<p>I was also wondering about MCB 102 over the summer without having taken Bio1A/AL. Would it be insanely difficult? (would reviewing bio1a/al stuff before help?) and the thing with the professor too, heard he’s not too great, with the exception of the open-book tests.</p>
<p>i was hoping to take it over summer so I could concentrate on that instead of having to juggle it with other classes</p>
<p>@nike: it would be difficult but not impossible. yes, reviewing key parts of bio 1a would help a lot, or else you’re just going to not understand what’s going on in lecture. bio1al lab knowledge was also very helpful for the last part of the course (DNA topics). metabolism + DNA replication, repair, etc. off the top of my head would definitely be things you should review. what you should do is look for an old MCB 102 syllabus that lists the topics and do a review accordingly. </p>
<p>in fact, i found it for you: [MCB102</a> Principles of Biochemistry](<a href=“http://mcb.berkeley.edu/courses/mcb102/lecturetopics.htm]MCB102”>http://mcb.berkeley.edu/courses/mcb102/lecturetopics.htm)</p>
<p>it doesn’t list the topics for the third part, but i’d review DNA + RNA + genetic code, that kind of stuff.</p>
<p>Don’t see the big deal with Bio 1al though. Other than their weird calculation of predicting phenotypes (do we need to know that??) it felt like AP Bio all over again.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot for the advice! I really appreciate it. I’m hoping that since it’ll be the only class I’m taking during the summer I can focus solely on that</p>
<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Medical/PrepAcad.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Medical/PrepAcad.stm</a></p>
<p>I’m a little confused. Why do they say to take MCB 102 in the fall semester of senior year? It also says “Here is a typical academic program for an undergraduate at UC Berkeley who plans to begin medical school after graduation.” So you don’t need biochem to apply the summer between junior and senior year?</p>
<p>That’s weird/wrong. Most people take MCB 102 with Physics 8B in the fall of their junior year. But you don’t really need MCB 102 for the MCAT, so you just have to take it sometime before you graduate (even if you are applying to med school the summer after junior year). </p>
<p>By the way, many to most premeds take at least one year off after college, so you will probably do as well if you decide to stick with pre-med.</p>
<p>you actually don’t need to have completed all your pre-reqs in order to apply for medical school, you just have to have completed them all before you enter.</p>