<p>I will be starting college this september at University of California Irvine. I got into their biological sciences program and I am very excited to be a part of the UCI family. I want to be a surgeon someday and I really want to do well in the next four years so I'll have a good chance at getting into a good medical school. I am not a genius but I am intelligent and very determined to where I want to be. So, do you have any advice for me? Anything that you think I should do so I'd get a head start? I don't want to go into my 3rd year and wish I'd done things differently. So, tell me what can I do to get into a good medical school? Do you have any tips on how to handle the stress and a busy schedule. Should I start volunteering in a hospital right away? Please help me out.</p>
<p>Start here: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1486654-premed-resources-thread-start-here-first.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1486654-premed-resources-thread-start-here-first.html</a></p>
<p>Particularly read the advice in the 4th thread down:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1331981-new-pre-med-students.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1331981-new-pre-med-students.html</a></p>
<p>For the first semester at least, pay more attention to your school work. When you know you could maintain a good enough GPA, you could start to add ECs little by little.</p>
<p>In the end, every applicant will likely have some volunteer EC and he could do it any time. If not this year, it could be the next year. But once he has taken a class, the grade is set in th stone and there is no chance to erase it (for MD schools.) As curmudgeon posted: Classes come first. More students drop out of the premed track because of a less desirable first year GPA; few drop out in the first 2 years because he does not volunteer enough.</p>
<p>I go to UCD. The science program here seems to be very easy, but I’m not sure how UCI’s sciences compare. Regardless, I recommend taking a easy/moderate courseload in your fall quarter for you to better know the school and how the quarter system works. Then in your winter and spring quarters (assuming you’ve done very well in the fall) you can start piling on the heavier courseloads. The reason I say to cram as many classes you can handle in your freshman year is because:
- You’re probably not going to be doing any extracurriculars (labs, leadership positions, etc) just yet. If anything, you’ll be doing volunteering starting earliest in your winter quarter (though I don’t recommend this at all)
- You should get to know how heavy and quick the quarter system goes by. If you aren’t doing well in your general science courses, then how well do you think you’ll fair when you get into your harder science courses like ochem or upper division major related courses. You either are going to adapt to college level academics well or not. If you are, then you shouldn’t have a problem with any of your classes. If you aren’t, then it’ll be better for you to get a lower GPA and figure out how to manage these things in your freshman year and present medical schools with GPA that trends up later on.
- Depending on your major, you probably don’t want to be stacking your general education classes with your important upper division ones. I know that for many bio majors, a majority of your classes in your first and second years are going to be lower division science courses (gen bio, gen chem, ochem, math, physics, etc.) Many of my friends in bio majors are taking a decent courseload with only scien-ce classes. Get your GEs out of the way when you’re dealing with the “easier” science courses. Then concentrate on the harder science classes when you’re in your 3rd and 4th year. And as I find with my history double major, classes that fall outside of science/engineering have a good amount of reading and you’ll need to study very hard come exams.</p>