<p>What can you guys tell me about it? How good is it? I'm considering attending UCSC, but my major was Biology on my application. I really want to go into the medical field, as an RN or doctor. </p>
<p>Some background info: I want to go into medicine, but the length of being in school and the risk of not being able to actually become a doctor plus hearing that when on the path 'you can never go back' is what makes me wonder whether I should just play it safe and be a nurse.</p>
<p>Also, can anyone tell me aboout it in comparison to the Thomas Haider program at UCR?</p>
<p>[Prospective</a> Medical Students](<a href=“http://www.biomed.ucr.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25&Itemid=49]Prospective”>http://www.biomed.ucr.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25&Itemid=49)</p>
<p>[School</a> of Medicine: Program in Biomedical Sciences](<a href=“http://medschool.ucr.edu/haider.html]School”>The Thomas Haider Program at the UCR School of Medicine | School of Medicine Student Affairs)</p>
<p>Well I got accepted to santa cruz as a health science major and as far as I know it satisfies most requirements for medical schools and a cool thing about the major is that you are required to learn spanish and take medical spanish plus an internship sooooo all that sounds pretty sweet to me! :]</p>
<p>yeah the spanish is one of the hook points. I was thinking of just majoring in Spanish instead of Bio, but the medically focused parents and just me wanting to go into the medical field pushed me to Biology. I guess the Health Sciences is a good in between?..I’m in Spanish 4 AP right now in highschool and I also tutor Spanish 1-3 students.</p>
<p>impressive! :]
and yea im thinking the health science sounds good for you! Are you considering other schools?</p>
<p>thanks haha. im considering UCR bc of its Thomas Haider Program…</p>
<p>[Prospective</a> Medical Students](<a href=“http://www.biomed.ucr.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25&Itemid=49]Prospective”>http://www.biomed.ucr.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25&Itemid=49)</p>
<p>Are you taking the Health Sciences major as a freshmen? How hard do you think it would be for me, since I put Biology on my application.
Also, is it a 3 year major or like what? What exactly is needed to get into that major. any prereqs?</p>
<p>Yea I am going to be a freshmen at Santa Cruz taking the health science major. There are no prereqs that I know of and im pretty sure you can still switch majors because all majors are just “proposed majors” until junior year when you declare it as your official major. If you want for sure answers though you should probably email the school. And maybe it’d be easier to decided between the two if you looked through other aspects like who’s campus do you like more? and how close it is to where you are now. Stuff like that usually helps :]</p>
<p>yeah thats trrue. thanks pinkvgirrrl=] what other reasons are you going to ucsc for? that helped you to decide. ih eard they don’t use letter grades and do pass or fail depending on your performance or something? im not sure tho…</p>
<p>There are letter grades. UCSC switched over around 2000ish. You still get narrative evaluations from professors (if they turn them in) but the primary grade is on a 4.0 scale. Youc an also take up to 1/4 (i think) of your major’s classes Pass/No Pass but that doesn’t look good if you plan to go to med school or grad school.</p>
<p>As of right now, you have no major. You are not locked into any degree and you are not denied any lower division biology/chemistry classes. You will declare your major when you reach 90units, but that will be in about 2 years, depending on how many credits you transfer in (from APs or community college).</p>
<p>The Health Sciences Major is a full 4 year program and the main differentiation between it and other pre-med programs is the Medical Spanish requirement, which is super useful for CA and southwestern US health care.
HOWEVER, it still does not fulfill the requirements for medical school. Medical schools require 1 year of English, the writing requirement in the degree (130L and 189) will not count (the english classes need to be taken outside of the biology department). Also, if you take the ochem 108 series, make sure to take the 108c class as you need 1 year of ochem.</p>
<p>I would recommend visiting both campuses and seeing which one you like better. UCSC has a slightly better reputation compared to UCR, but it’s not as big a difference between, say, UCSC and Berkeley, so the ‘prestige’ of the universities and the programs aren’t going to play a big role in any future schools’ decisions. If you want to go to med school, do really well in you classes and do a lot of outside volunteer work, ideally with patient contact.</p>
<p>hmmm well i went to visit the school with my parents junior year and a combo of the atmosphere, the city, the people, and the beautiful campus are what sold it to me :] I’m also really interested in joining the peace corps and UCSC is one of the top schools for producing peace corps volunteers.</p>
<p>oh sounds coool. and whoa peace corps thats really admirable=]</p>
<p>:] haha thanks! so are you any closer to deciding between the two?</p>