<p>So I've been really confused lately about how to balance the rest of my time left in undergrad. I am currently a public health major on the pre-med track. I am a sophomore, gonna graduate in 2017. Under no circumstances do I want to spend any extra time in undergrad because its expensive. So far i have only taken chem 1, next semester i'm taking chem 2 and I want to take orgo over the summer so it doesn't clash with physics which i will take junior year. I was thinking about studying abroad though so i wanted to see at what time in the next two years do people think i should try for it. Ideally i would do it in junior year, fall semester BUT i want to take physics that semester. Should i a) take physics over the summer (sophomore year summer) or b) just study abroad senior year either fall or spring. I REALLY want to do study abroad because i would be practicing health care in a developing country and i think that would look really good on my resume. So please help!</p>
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<p>Two things–</p>
<p>First, be aware that US medical schools will very reluctant to admit an applicant who doesn’t plan to practice in the US.</p>
<p>Second, licensing requirements vary very widely by country. Not all countries will recognize your US training or may require you to repeat your undergrad medical coursework or residency training in their country.</p>
<p>So before you get too settled on this plan, you need to do more research about this.</p>
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<p>Don’t do this!</p>
<p>Unless you are very strong student, this is probably a very bad idea. Ochem is a very intense class which requires mastery of many concepts and ideas you haven’t been exposed to yet. Squeezing a whole year of Ochem into 8 summer weeks makes the course a whole lot more difficult than it needs to be. Also the shortened time frame of summer school makes recovering from a bad quiz or exam grade extremely difficult.</p>
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<p>During senior year, you will need to be in the US for admission interviews which stretch from August through mid- March. Often you’re only given 2 weeks notice of an interview date and many programs will not allow you to postpone/reschedule an interview. So unless you can either afford to fly back to the US on short notice or blow off interviews, plan on spending your senior year in the US. </p>
<p>If you are going to take any pre-reqs as a summer course, make it psych, sociology or physics. </p>
<p>RE: your scheduling–</p>
<p>1) When do you plan to take biochem (which will be 30% of the questions in the biological sciences section of MCAT starting January 2015)?</p>
<p>2) When do you plan to take the MCAT? </p>
<p>Med schools don’t like seeing Orgo in the summer. Do your study abroad over the summer.</p>
<p>Biochem? it doesn’t say on any of my school pre-med websites that you need to take biochem?
And i want to take the MCATs end of junior year. Also, i think you misunderstood me, i plan on staying in the U.S for med school and for practicing medicine, i only want to do a semester abroad somewhere in a developing country somewhere because itll give me more experience and i’ve heard its a good plus to not only have shadowing and volunterring experience on your resume, but to also have tried squeezing in time to go help the needy in other countries when possible. The thing is im better at chemistry than the math that i would be doing in physics so i would prefer to take physics throughout the year since i dont think id be able to take it during the summer. And orgo, i really need to get it out of the way, and i have no other options. ive heard that if your transcript shows you were pressed for time, they understand if you take science class (org for example) over the summer </p>
<p>1) Study abroad will not help your resume, so don’t do it unless you have a burning desire to do so for other reasons</p>
<p>2) Organic chemistry is NOTHING like general chemistry. At all. The problem is not necessarily that it would look bad for you to take it over the summer, but that it is already a very abstract and challenging course when spread out over two semesters, and taking over the summer is just not enough time to wrap your head around all the weird conceptual things in organic chemistry, and you will likely do very poorly</p>
<p>3) Starting in April 2015, there will be a new MCAT that requires biochemistry, as well as psychology and sociology. You don’t have a choice about taking them if you want to do well on the test</p>
<p>Tou can get as much experience in a rural or urban clinic that treats uninsured (yeah, we still exist) or underinsured patients. That looks better because it avoids airfare, lodging, etc. It also could broaden your view of health care and give you more material to discuss in essays and interviews. If you’re fluent in another language that the patients speak, you could understand even more and be even more helpful.</p>
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<p>How will you be paying for med school? If like most students, you will be taking out loans, then you will be obligated to get a well paying position in order to pay back these loans. That wouldn’t happen if you followed thru with your plan.</p>
<p>We see posts like yours every once in awhile and the idea of how their loans will get paid back are not considered.</p>
<p>Also…as WOWmom states, med schools want to educate people who will practice here in the US. that is why they exist.</p>
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<p>Then your school’s website is hopelessly out of date. Changes to MCAT were announced THREE years ago and go into effect in February 2015.</p>
<p>The 2015 MCAT will have **4 sections<a href=“instead%20of%20the%203%20the%20MCAT%20now%20has”>/b</a>: biological sciences (which will include biochem as well as Ochem); physical sciences, verbal and human behavior (psych and sociology).</p>
<p>Please read AMCAS’s description of what will be included on each section of the 2015 MCAT:</p>
<p><a href=“Taking the MCAT® Exam”>https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/mcat/mcat2015/testsections/</a></p>
<p>In addition the the previously require pre-reqs, you’ll need biochem, sociology, psychology and statistics for the 2015 MCAT. </p>
<p>Medical schools are already changing admission requirements so that entry requirements better match the MCAT’s contents. You will need to take a semester of biochem. (Lab not required for biochem.)</p>
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<p>I strongly agree with woodworker’s post, if you want to work with medically underserved there are plenty of places in the US where you can do that. Rural areas and inner city areas are both in dire need of physicians.</p>
<p>Try volunteering at your nearest homeless shelter, or any of the numerous volunteer organizations that do service on the Sioux or Navajo reservations (where a significant portion of families have no heat, no running water, no electricity and live in conditions that rival those of 3rd world countries).</p>
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<p>While there is limited math in Ochem, the intellectual basis of Ochem is the electronic theory of atoms (orbital shells and the quantum energies required to move electrons from one orbital to another). you can’t just memorize formulae or reactions for ochem and still pass the class. You need a fundamental understanding of how the atomic structure of atoms work–and that does require math.</p>
<p>I know how to do simple math like that haha, when i say im not great at math, im talking calc 2 and physics stuff. people!!! I don’t plan on practicing medicine out of the country. Please read what i said more carefully. I dont HAVE to do study abroad, but i would really love the opportunity, cause i don’t know when i’d get the chance again. </p>
<p>if i do orgo during junior year, then i wont be able to study physics till senior yhear, but i want to take the MCATS junior year. unless i take both physics and orgo together… </p>
<p>My only other option then would be to take both physics and orgo junior year. </p>
<p>If you want to spend time abroad, you could do a summer abroad program. Abroad experiences do not have to be done during the school year.</p>
<p>And we have read what you said–we’re even quoting your own words back at you! </p>
<p>Pre-med physics involves no math more complicated than algebra 2 and trig. It is simple math. </p>
<p>Physics and ochem at the same time isn’t impossible. In fact adcomms will expect to see that you have at some time in your college career taken more than one science class at a time during a given semester. (Med school is like taking 5-7 science classes at a time. If you can’t handle 2 science classes at a time, how in the world are you going to survive med school?)</p>
<p>so it would be better to take orgo and physics at the same time? because i might just end up doing that if thats the case </p>
<p>And the problem with taking Ochem and physics at the same time is……….?</p>
<p>Yes, both classes require a substantial time commitment, but it’s not an impossible schedule. Pick 2 lighter classes to go with the 2 sciences.</p>
<p>There are different levels of math required depending on which physics you’ll take. Algebra based physics is perfectly fine. You don’t need to take calculus based physics. I agree with previous posters. Don’t take ORGO in the summer.
In terms of studying abroad, your school might not allow study abroad in senior year. My son’s school specifically states that senior year has to be spent on campus. I know some premeds manage to go abroad for a semester which is great. But with all the new prerequisites I don’t know how you can manage it. Maybe try to find some summer program you can do abroad.<br>
Taking physics and ORGO together is doable. My son took both last semester and did really well. Along with Biochem and research course. But he’s really good at ORGO and strong in science overall.<br>
With all the new prerequisites you need to have a lot of discipline and good time management in order to fit in all the courses. And your probably have some core courses that your school requires. </p>
<p>So I’ve been really confused lately about how to balance the rest of my time left in undergrad. I am currently a public health major on the pre-med track. I am a sophomore, gonna graduate in 2017. Under no circumstances do I want to spend any extra time in undergrad because its expensive. So far i have only taken chem 1, next semester i’m taking chem 2 and I want to take orgo over the summer so it doesn’t clash with physics which i will take junior year. I was thinking about studying abroad though so i wanted to see at what time in the next two years do people think i should try for it. Ideally i would do it in junior year, fall semester BUT i want to take physics that semester. Should i a) take physics over the summer (sophomore year summer) or b) just study abroad senior year either fall or spring. I REALLY want to do study abroad because i would be practicing health care in a developing country and i think that would look really good on my resume. So please help! </p>
<p>Well, you got to get your priorities set according to your plan, not other wishes outside of this plan. They are also important bu only if the paln is workable. First, I woudl avoid any pre-reqs in a summer, period, I just simply would not have this on application, no matter who said what, why create any littlest tiniest “minus”, you want only “plus”'s. Another thing, why are you taking pre-reqs sooooooo slooowwly? Yes, balance of classes is important. But, if you cannot handle 2 hard classes (and Gen. Chem is NOT hard by any means) per semester, how are you planning to handle academics at Med. School, where everything will be much harder than anything at all in UG and it will be much more of it, all the time.
Also, to do well on MCAT you would need some upper Bio classes, which you probably already know and they are much harder than Gen. Chem.<br>
And there is no reason to first choose the expensive UG, then adjust your goals to the sticker price. If you choose the expensive UG, you need to be ready to pay as much as needed to complete everything successfully, to have your application nice and shiny, otherwise nothing (including price) is making sense at all. So, for now, you might as well forget about price, the time to dealt with it has passed, it was way back when you decided to attend this expensive school. If you need to stay there longer to accomplish EVERYTHING that you want, including but not limited to the “shiny” application, then you might have no other option, but pay more than you planned.
My own D. went on the organized trip to NZ and got 6 credits for it. It was not though traditional “study abroad”, she did not need credits, she just decided, why not and completed few projects based on her trip. She also went in a summer for few weeks (mihgt be 6, I do not rmember) and she also obtained ADDITIONAL Merit scholarship that covered this trip, I said ADDITIONAL because she was already on full tuition Merit at her UG. She never took a single summer class, why shoot yourself in a foot in such a highly competitive application situation? She always had at least 2 harder classes per semester with the balance of easier classes. Good reasonable advice in a post above.
You need to face the facts, dreaming is good but it may not bring you where you want to be. Dream on, but make a workable reasonable plan and definitely do not do any harm yourself, ther are plenty obstacles on this hardest of all academic road to MD.</p>