<p>I am about to start my first semester this fall. I'm going to Mount San Antonio College, a community college. I don't know what to major in to become a psychiatrist. I was first told that a psychology major can lead into pre-med and then my grades would lead me into a possible admission into a medical school. But, I was just made aware that if I want to go to a medical school, I have to major in a medical-related study. Using assist.org, I learned that if I was a psychology major, I would need a few classes, most of which I was able to receive at registration. My classes go as follows: Philosophy 3, Sociology 1, Math 71, and English 1A.</p>
<p>My goal is to get my general education at Mount San Antonio College, transfer to Cal Poly Pomona, then go to a medical school to become a Psychiatrist. How would I go about doing this?</p>
<p>The Psychology major interests me very much, and I have 4 classes that are pre-reqs for the Psychology major. But a psychology major would let me transfer to Cal Poly Pomona, and ultimately let me transfer to a Medical School? (I would choose Keck School of Medicine for reference.)</p>
<p>To be an eventual viable med school applicant, you can major in anything. You need to have a superior GPA (+3.7), a great MCAT score, and top marks in a suite of pre-med science classes. You don’t transfer to Med School. You apply to a bunch of them and hope for the best. Many are rejected.</p>
<p>Plus you need to have the dedication beyond this to excel as a physician and to mend people. Psychiatry comes later.</p>
<p>I don’t think I fully understand… So, I could major in anything, but I need top marks in pre-med science classes. In order to major in Psychology, there are no requirements of chemistry, biology, or any science classes, for that matter. Would I need to take the science classes that aren’t required by the Psychology major, but needed to go to a Med School? Don’t I need to fulfill all the classes in my major in order to transfer/graduate?</p>
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[quote[Would I need to take the science classes that aren’t required by the Psychology major, but needed to go to a Med School? Don’t I need to fulfill all the classes in my major in order to transfer/graduate?
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<p>Right, whatever your major is, you need to fulfill the requirements of that major, and if you want to go to medical school, you also need to take the required pre-medical classes. And, really, you need very good grades across the board, including, but not limited to, your pre-med science classes.</p>
<p>Most college students who want to go to medical school choose to major in one of the sciences, but they don’t have to. It’s just that if you major in biology (or chemistry, or biochem, or even geology), all your pre-med classes will also count toward your major. If you want to be a pre-med and major in music or philosophy or Spanish, you can do it, but you’re going to be busy, and you need to be really careful about planning your schedule.</p>
<p>I happen to know a lot of psychiatrists. Among them, I know people who majored in biology, in chemistry, and in psychology.</p>
<p>You might also want to think about whether your real goal is becoming a psychiatrist (which means you are a medical doctor, and need all the science that that entails) or becoming a psychologist / psychotherapist. </p>
<p>Someone is giving you very bad advice if they are indicating that you must be a science major to go to medical school. You must complete certain science pre-requisites, but you can do that with whatever major you so desire.</p>
<p>I’m interested in the psychiatry field. Is there a general list of what every medical school requires class-wise, or does it very from school to school?</p>
<p>^It varies across the board, but most medical schools require General Biology I and II, Chemistry I and II, Physics I and II, and Organic Chemistry I and II.</p>
<p>It isn’t current, but it’s pretty recent. It also tells you how to find current information from the American Association of Medical Colleges. There’s a fee for that, but once you start college, you may be able to get the information at no cost to you from the career placement office at the college.</p>
<p>Psychiatry is medical profession for which the following steps are required: (a) get a four college degree and take all courses necessary to get into medical school, get a very high GPA and take MCAT test needed for admission to medical school which you begin after college; (b) four years of medical school where you are learning everything else that other doctors learn; (c) that is then followed by four years of residency in which you work with psychiatrists and actually are trained to be one.</p>
<p>Psychology is a college major that is not psychiatry. It is not a medical profession. It is a social science. Its similarity to psychiatry is not much more than that the words both begin with psch and end in y. You can get a college degree with a major in psychology and even graduate degrees but psycholigists will never be able to practice psychiatry without going through medical school and residency.</p>