SDSU Nursing vs. UCSD Biology Major

I got admitted to SDSU nursing and UCSD biology majors this fall 2022. I paid SIR fees to both schools, so I have more time to make a final decision while I am very busy with my senior year’s final exams. This is my big decision which leads me to my long-term career. Would you please advise me which major should I pursue? Could you PLEASE tell me the pros and cons, job outlook, and career advancement of each major?
I personally love both majors, and will do well with either major. I like the research system at UCSD which will challenge me to reach high. The scholarship is more than enough to pay for my tuition and dorm at UCSD , and it guarantees for 4 years. I just have one fear…. If I don’t get accepted to a Medical School at my first try, my biology major may not pay me a return on investment. I wish not to spend more than 8 years in education to become an Anesthesiologist. On another hand, I also like the vibe at SDSU and its outstanding nursing program. Its tuition and dorm fees are fully covered by my scholarship. Besides, if I don’t get accepted into Certified Registered Nurse Anesthesia (CRNA) on my first try, at least I still get a stable job in healthcare as Registered Nurse. Anyway I am just a kid, and I need to learn a lot from your life experience. I greatly appreciate your insight and feedback.

The safer, easier, cheaper, more “civilized” lifestyle choice is to go to nursing school, with the eventual goal of nurse anesthetist or some other nurse practitioner level employment. BUT, do you have the kind, caring personality that is suited for nursing? Do you think that you would prefer to work more intimately with fewer patients, which is what nurses in training do? Nursing school will be far less rigorous, less intellectually challenging, and the path towards CRNA or NP will require literally 1/10th the training hours that med school and residency would require. It is a shorter pathway that is more easily followed, with a higher likelihood of achieving the final goal. Even if you don’t get into CRNA, there are so many things that a smart nurse can do. ICU nursing, teaching, corporate work, sales, become a NP. the list goes on and on.

To get into med school, you’d need to be a top student in highly competitive premed classes, plus your major, and achieve a high MCAT score, not to mention that med schools want to see research, clinical experience, and volunteer work. But at the end of 4 yrs of college, 4 yrs of high-intensity med school (the last two of which are clinical training that often requires 12 hour days, with about 1 in 4 nights working overnight), and 4 yrs of residency for anesthesia, again working at least 80 hours/week, you would be an anesthesiologist who would be the leader of the anesthesia team, likely supervising others, and you’d be qualified to do a fellowship in the really exciting, challenging sort of anesthesia, cases like cardiac procedures involving bypass, emergency trauma cases, the really tough stuff.

Your high school achievement and your SAT/ACT score offer some prediction of whether you will be able to achieve at the level required to gain admission to medical school. If you tended to be a top student in the most rigorous classes your high school offered, including AP sciences and AP math, and your SAT score was over 1500, your ACT was over 34, then you probably would be able to achieve the GPA and the MCAT score required to get into med school (with a LOT of very hard work). If you are an URM, you might be accepted with slightly lesser qualifications. There is less scholarship money available for med school than for undergrad - people are expected to take out massive loans. You might have to take on a lot of debt, and if you had to drop out before finishing med school AND residency, you’d find that amount of debt almost impossible to pay back. Most premeds wind up dropping premed, but most people who get into med school do wind up finishing, and also finish residency.

Only you know whether you’re up to the challenge of the med school path. However, with the financial future of medicine uncertain, unless you are absolutely driven to become a doctor, I’d say choose the nursing pathway instead.

I have no idea how the two schools would handle it if they were to find out that you sent deposits to two schools. I’d suggest that you make your decision quickly, and withdraw from one of them. Other commentators might know whether there is a risk of a school withdrawing its acceptance if they were to become aware that you were holding a spot at two schools.

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Thanks for your advice and guidance!

If you choose biology I would make sure to develop a strong resume while you are in college. Once you graduate there are jobs, but they won’t be high paying (lab work, research assistant, scribe, teaching etc). My daughter went this route and made enough to live in an expensive city with a roommate, but she is very, very frugal. She spent 2 years shadowing, observing, and interviewing doctors, NPs, PhDs, etc before deciding on her path. Most biology majors move on to some type of grad/professional school.

A nursing major will lead to a good job after college, but you have to like this type of work. If you don’t, all is not lost. You can work as an RN and get an advanced degree to become a NP- different type of work, but once again you have to like it. An NP is not a physician. You can be involved in research as an NP- it’s not one or the other.

A biology degree can lead to all different types of career paths- MD, PhD, PA, NP, genetic counselor, teaching, etc. This might be good if you are unsure about nursing.

Only you can decide, and I wish you luck!

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It is unethical to pay deposits/SIR to more than one school. Whatever you decide, do it quickly and withdraw from your second choice.

Both nursing and medicine require high ethical standards and your decision to violate this principle does not speak well of your critical thinking nor your personal standards. If either school were to find out, they could rescind your admission and scholarship offers.

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Do nursing at SDSU. You might have to take a minor to make sure all the premed prerequisites are met. If you don’t get into medical school right away, you have a solid well-paid career to fall back on, and you get clinical experience too. That’s worth it’s weight in gold on a medical school application.

It’s not really as easy as all that, to keep both options open. Nursing is a great choice with lots of opportunities, but there are good reasons why it’s relatively rare for nurses to go to med school. Not unheard of, but for the most part a decision to go to nursing school makes ending up in med school even more unlikely than if you take the premed path. That should be understood and accepted if you choose nursing.

Also, double depositing is problematic and should be resolved ASAP.

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I don’t see any way that a person could do a nursing school schedule and simultaneously attend premed classes, but if you wanted to keep the option open, you could possibly do your premeds over the summers. Your English from nursing school would likely cross count.

There is only minimal overlap between SDSU nursing courses and pre-med courses (English composition, statistics, psychology, and one elective biology course; general biology, general and organic chemistry, biochemistry, calculus, and physics do not overlap), and very little schedule space to add the rest of the pre-med courses.
https://nursing.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Direct-Entry-Track-1-MAP.pdf
https://hpao.sdsu.edu/med/

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I would remove one of my deposits now.

If you do not apply to medical school, do you think you will always wonder “what if”? If the answer is yes, then choose biology and try to be a competitive applicant to medical school. You could always change your mind if your interests change, etc.

Nursing/PA etc is not going anywhere. If you are a biology major and decide after graduation to apply to PA programs or accelerated BSN or NP programs, you can. The issue is money- I don’t know what your finances look like. There are graduate loans (will your parents help with costs?) and nursing programs do give scholarships. You would also need the prerequisites.

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