<p>Personally, I'd like to know if pre-med is for me before I jump onto the academic suicide bandwagon. </p>
<p>How can you know if pre-med and its corollary of going to med/dental school etc is the right choice for you? I don't want to dedicate four years in completing a number of requirements that I wont end up using. </p>
<p>In the case you do decide that premed is the path for you, what kind of pressures, pros, cons does it have?</p>
<p>I think a good way to decide is to volunteer at a hospital and spend a good amount of time shadowing doctors.</p>
<p>You can always graduate, do your thing and if you find that you want to go to med school, you can take the pre-req classes later on.</p>
<p>WELL PRE-MED is pretty versatile. Remember that pre-med is not your major just a set of requirements for admittance to medical school. If you are in love with biology pre-med would most likely be pretty safe. On the other hand, If obliging yourself to a pre-med due to the monetary benefits upon completion of medical school, odds are you will burn out pretty quickly.</p>
<p>Premed also kills your chances for Law School / Banking because it will wreck your GPA. </p>
<p>On another note, is it too late to START premed requirements sophmore year?</p>
<p>I think premed involves a bio lab, a couple of chem classes, a semester or two of calc, and a physics lab? I think it's definitely possible to complete those during sophmore and junior years, although if you aren't a bio or chem major, it might dominate your schedule for those two years.</p>
<p>I know the med school GPA requirement used to be at least a 3.6 or 3.7. Does that still apply, or is it just a given now?</p>
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Premed also kills your chances for Law School / Banking because it will wreck your GPA.
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<p>wrong....you have to have as good a GPA if not better to get into med school so if you think u can be premed and pull a 3.1 and still get into med school then u'r in for a big surprise. The average gpa of people admitted to med school is 3.6 and at top schools the AVERAGE gpa is reported at 3.8 and 3.9 for some schools. In my view, while actually truly wanting to become a doctor is crucial it is equally crucial to be able to do well in the premed classes (gchem, orgo, bio, physics). When you start freshman year SO MANY people are premed but have u heard of "weed out" classes...those are the ones intended to ...i guess...convince people who can't keep up to drop premed.....well i'v heard that said about gchem, orgo, and bio at columbia....ESPECIALLY bio!</p>
<p>As for starting sophomore year, its doable but not recommended. You should at least get chem out of the way freshman year both to know where you stand in science classes and to avoid being behind...if anything it'll end up fulfilling your science requirement.</p>
<p>Yeah, see either way it is apparently harder to get a really good GPA doing premed.</p>
<p>That aside, let's say I do decide to do premed...</p>
<p>1st year:
UW
LitHum
French
Music or Cultures?</p>
<p>Now how can I fit in premed classes and start my major in economics?</p>
<p>If you can do bio first year, and you decide it's not for you and neither is premed, will it count towards your GPA if you did badly but dropped it?</p>
<p>Which brings me to another question:</p>
<p>Does everything count towards your GPA?</p>
<p>Everything counts (unless you're taking it pass/fail, like PE).</p>
<p>Most kids save Art/Music Hum and major cultures for sophomore and junior years so you'd just add freshman orgo or bio to the slot you've got assigned to music/cultures.</p>
<p>And maybe a Calc... to make it 5 subjects...</p>
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Most kids save Art/Music Hum and major cultures for sophomore and junior years so you'd just add freshman orgo or bio to the slot you've got assigned to music/cultures.
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<p>you probably won't get into a music/art class anyway since they'll all be filled so you should do yourself a favor and not count on it. If you are just doing premed and are not a science major you should not take freshman orgo. </p>
<p>Bio is a sophomore year course which requires gchem (or similar) as a pre-requisite. Freshman do not take bio at columbia...it is different at barnard. </p>
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Does everything count towards your GPA?
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<p>There is a certain period in which you are allowed to drop classes which would then not show up on your transcript at all. However there is an even longer period in which you are allowed to decide to change your grading option to pass/fail which would just mean u have to pass the class and it would not count numerically toward your GPA. The drop period is about a month longer for SEAS than it is for CC.</p>
<p>You can become premed at any point and have any major. Premed is not a major at most schools. Medical schools generally require a year of Bio, a year of physics, a year of Calc, 2 years of Chem. That pretty much covers the MCATs as well. There are now some premed programs that can be taken post college at many schools if you cannot get the courses done in time to get your UG degree on schedule. You can also take some of the courses in the summer. The toughest premed course is Organic Chem. The curve in that class tends to be tough and that is often the spoiler for premed aspirations.</p>
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If you can do bio first year, and you decide it's not for you and neither is premed
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<p>1) bio does not really represent what most practicing doctors do
2) bio at columbia is notorious for being an EXTREMELY hard class</p>
<p>basically tho, you shouldnt base the decision off of classes. you should know that you WANT to be a doctor and that the years of extremely hard med school will be something you can endure.</p>
<p>You can do an econ major with a pre-med concentration.</p>
<p>Oh, and you also have to do labs for the science course, as well as Organic Chemistry.</p>
<p>I've known many who would have made excellent doctors but just did not have the focus during undergrad years to get the grades to get into med school. Though the courses may not be representative of being a doctor, you do have to do well in them and learn the material well because getting into med school revolves around your test scores which are subject based and your grades.</p>
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The toughest premed course is Organic Chem. The curve in that class tends to be tough and that is often the spoiler for premed aspirations.
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<p>Is this intended to be generic advice, or are you speaking about Columbia? At Columbia, into bio is generally thought to be much tougher than orgo.</p>
<p>Generic advice. There are often many types of bio courses. General bio, cell bio, molecular bio. For med school purposes, a good college level bio course is adequate. You have to do well in it and know the material well. But the subject matter is not that ornerous at most schools. Organic tends to be a killer where ever you take it. Kinda like engineering and advanced math courses. It doesn't matter as much where you take it since the core subject matter is what makes the course difficult.</p>
<p>This generic advice is flat-out inapplicable vis-a-vis Columbia. There's ONE intro bio course at Columbia (C2005/2006). If you're premed or a bio major or need to take bio for another science major, you take that course. That course is widely thought of as being very difficult -- in terms of breadth of subject matter, expectations (both challenging problem solving and heavy memorization are tested), and artificial curve. Orgo at Columbia is a challenging course, but it's not thought of as a killer course that'll make or break you.</p>
<p>In a case like that I would take the bio course elsewhere. It is not going to be taken heavily into account that the course is so much more difficult at Columbia. You just need a bio course that will cover what is needed for MCATs and you need to get a good grade in it. I know a number of kids in schools where the science courses are very, very difficult who have taken those courses elsewhere. Sometimes they are packaged as pre med courses for those with undergraduate degrees. Our local college offers such a package and my son's good friend's girlfriend was accepted to med school taking that package after graduating with philosophy major from a school filled with techies. The curve on all science courses there was horrendous. She worked at a hospital and took those pre med courses locally, did very well, and felt she was at an advantage for the MCATs because she took all of her premed courses in a very short time frame instead of spread over 4 years. She enjoyed her undergrad days and her major and did well in it.</p>
<p>Med schools don't really care about your concentration , ie no preference if you a science major. Some students take pre-med after their bachelor's degree at many various schools, which brings the point about GPA. </p>
<p>There are many options for med school, and many different admissions paths,.</p>
<p>The poster is right "pre-med is just a bunch of courses rather than a "major or degree" basically", its bio,physics,chem, and some math (calculus I believe, maybe statistics - math necessary for psychics) . </p>
<p>A lot of people take the courses after getting their degree. People are even going to quality schools overseas nowadays for med school.</p>
<p>Quality schools overseas for med school? That's kind of an oxymoron, assuming you're talking about a med school in Central America or some other place where US med school rejects go.</p>
<p>Would you want the second-string doctors -- who can't get into a US med school -- operating on you? Regardless of the quality of education, the people coming out of foreign med schools are not going to be as sharp as your Harvard Med School guy.</p>