<p>I'm an undergrad student in pre-med at a large state school. I've never been a great student but received excellent scores on the ACT/SAT and I tend to get good grades when I actually spend the necessary time.
Upon entering college, I was told by academic advisors that Chemical Engineering would be a good major for premed. After taking a tough course load in the fall, due largely to entering college with AP credits, I received an extremely disappointing 2.79 GPA. This spring I continued as a chemical engineer and I will be receiving a GPA between 1.0-1.5. (D in Ochem, D- in Physics, D-/F in Process Flows, and A-/B+ in Intro to Chem E)</p>
<p>I know the mistakes I've made this year and plan on trying my absolute hardest when I return to school in the fall. My question is, what should I be doing about majors? I love chemistry, but I hear that it is tough for pre-med and I now realize that chemical engineering is probably unrealistic. Should I consider switching to a biology major? What happens if after four years I don't get accepted into med school and only have an undergraduate biology degree? If I do not get accepted into med-school, I would much rather attend graduate school/do research than work industry.</p>
<p>Thanks for taking the time to read/answer my question</p>
<p>Why are your worrying about being a pre-med? Aren’t you in danger of being put on probation or withdrawn from your university? You need to seek advice from someone at your university on how to proceed from here. Your goal now should be to obtain a degree. Worry about the other things after you are back on track. </p>
<p>I’ve already spoken to my college advisor and she showed little concern. I took 18 credits of weed-out classes this semester which was a huge mistake, but apparently GPAs like mine are more common than I thought. In fact when I brought up biology she recommended a minor/double major… that’s when I came here.</p>
<p>Edit: Clarifying, the reason why I am making decisions now is because I have to schedule my next semester classes and would like to have an idea of what my degree is going to look like. I mostly wanted to know if I was significantly narrowing my options by going a biology route.</p>
<p>It sounds like from your self-description you may be a smart kid who lacks the study skills, self-discipline and/or work ethic needed in college to get the good grades required to be competitive for med school.</p>
<p>Given this, I have to ask–what are you willing to do/how hard are you willing to work to get the essential good grades needed for med school? </p>
<p>Be honest with yourself. Unless you are willing to work very hard and to postpone your med school application at least until after graduation (while you work 1-2 years), potentially until after you complete a grad degree, then let go of the idea of med school. For now, at least. </p>
<p>Right now you’re in very bad place GPA-wise. Even if you earn As in every class you take for soph-jr-sr years, your GPA will still be very low (~3.2) for allopathic med schools. A single B+ will put you in an impossible position.</p>
<p>If you are willing to consider osteopathic schools and use their grade replacement policy, you may possibly have a chance. But you will need a 5th year of undergrad to re-do your freshman year.</p>
<p>Given all this, if you are thinking about changing your major to bio just for med school–this is probably not a great idea. Employment outlooks for bio majors are not terrific. (They’re no great shakes for chem majors either.)</p>
<p>I think Chemical Engineering is very employable. Perhaps you will be content with a CE job after UG or go on to a graduate degree for betterment. as WOWM said, you need to re-do your freshman courses to be accepted by DO schools. Some “Medical” schools will throw you out even with one D in O chem.</p>
<p>Basically you have been “weeded” out, as you stated by yourself.</p>
<p>Med school is for high-performing, obsessive, perfectionist students; I would not want to be treated by an MD who was anything less than obsessive and perfectionist. Your grades show that you don’t have these characteristics. I think you would be setting yourself up for further misery if you try to compete with the med school crowd. IMHO, this is now the time to re-orient yourself. Any kind of engineering is going to have really nice career prospects, and will leave you time to enjoy real life and a nice salary along the way. Or how about chemistry and a PharmD? Pharmacists do quite well, and they, too, have time for real life even before retirement.</p>
<p>I would advise you to think long and hard before aiming at academia. It’s brutal and all-consuming, with jobs in strange little nowhere college towns, and the financial rewards are not great. In lab sciences, everything is about getting the grant money, and if you fail to do that, you’re sunk. (My cousin is now a stay-at-home Dad with a good Chemistry PhD, who lost his tenure-track job because he didn’t bring in sufficient grant money. End of story.) I’m in a gentler field, but I don’t like academia nearly as much as I thought I would. Now I have tenure and am thus unemployable at anything else, so I’m stuck. In hindsight, engineering might have been just the thing.</p>
<p>I actually have to disagree with you the Medical school is for perfectionist students. Although it is needed to be devoted to your pursuit of medicine and saving lives, a perfectionist, defined as a person who’s happiness depends on succeeding 100% of the time would be a downside in being a physician because, a patient of yours can always die, even if they received the best care possible. Physicians can only hope to extend life and improve the quality of life by curing disease, they cannot hope to stop death from occurring. any doctor needs to accept that death is a possibility for any patient, and this is more so necessary in specialties like neurosurgery or oncology.</p>
<h2>“Med school is for high-performing, obsessive, perfectionist students; I would not want to be treated by an MD who was anything less than obsessive and perfectionist. Your grades show that you don’t have these characteristics.”</h2>
<p>That’s it in a nutshell. The OP is a slacker who sounds very immature and largely clueless. Failing out of a state school =/= pipeline to medical school.</p>
<p>MGM- Read Way Out Mom’s advice. Be honest with yourself. If you’re willing to make the sacrifices then buckle down and do it. If not, put together another game plan. It’s never to late to mature and accept a challenge, and when you want something badly enough, you figure out a way. However, I think you need to honestly evaluate your life and what you want. You won’t make it happen without paying the price.</p>
<p>I have seen people talking about this pattern before. Taking many APs in High School and then placing out of basic courses and taking harder classes their freshman year. Most people don’t take O-Chem until Sophomore year. The question is, why after a so-so first semester, didn’t you adjust your class load and get more help in your classes?</p>