<p>Hi, I was looking at majors at college and credit hours and had a few questions. I know that most major's are 120 credit hours, say I want to be a doctor, but don't want a science major? Like I take an engineering or business major, will I still have enough space left over for taking med school required courses? Or do I just take a minor in science, and does that do the same thing? How do credit hours, graduation requirements and so on work? And can you take courses outside a major?</p>
<p>BUMP… anyone?</p>
<p>Most majors leave enough breadth and free elective space to take pre-med courses, although engineering other than chemical or biomedical may not (possibly requiring overload schedules or summer courses to fit everything in).</p>
<p>The usual “credit hour” system uses one credit to represent three hours of work per week, so a normal course load of 15 to 16 credits theoretically means 45 to 48 hours of work per week, including both in-class and out-of-class time. However, actual workload is generally less these days, though lab and project courses generally have higher workloads than other courses. 120 to 128 semester credits or 180 to 192 quarter credit are the usual number to graduate with a bachelor’s degree (a quarter is 2/3 as long as a semester, so a quarter credit is 2/3 of a semester credit).</p>
<p>A typical liberal arts (including science, humanities, and social studies) major includes 48 to 60 semester credits worth of courses for one’s major; most colleges have additional breadth courses that require taking courses outside of one’s major (a non-science major can use pre-med courses for science breadth requirements). A typical engineering major has 75 to 100 semester credits worth of courses for one’s major (though some are math, physics, and usually chemistry that overlap with pre-med courses) with about 20 to 32 in required humanities and social studies breadth courses. Pre-med science courses are typically about 32-40 semester credits worth of science courses, though some English writing and social studies courses are needed by some medical schools.</p>
<p>Okay, So overall I can take an engineering course, and then take my pre-med sciences to complete requirements for a major and my med school? And would it be possible to still have a minor?</p>
<p>It depends. Look up the requirements (including breadth requirements) for your engineering major at the colleges you are interested in and see if there is enough free elective schedule space to include the pre-med courses that do not overlap with any other requirements.</p>