<p>So I'm a little confused on what classes I'm supposed to be taking my freshman year at UCLA. I am either doing Biochemistry or Neuroscience and I am planning on going to Medical School after I graduate. I've heard that I'm supposed to be taking 2 science courses and 1 non-science course (GE) every quarter but I have to take Math also .. so I have no idea what's going on.</p>
<p>If any current premed or prospective premed students can answer these questions, I'd really appreciate it. </p>
<ol>
<li>What is your major?</li>
<li>What courses did you take, and what was your GPA for each quarter (and year, if possible)?</li>
<li>If you took more than 3 courses in a quarter, how many did you take and how was the courseload?</li>
<li>Were there any professors that students should try to avoid? If so, which ones?</li>
</ol>
<p>All comments/answers are welcome! Thank you!</p>
<p>i’m a pre-pharmacy student, but there are more prereqs for pharm school than med school so i guess my opinion would be credited to some degree…</p>
<p>1.molecular, cell, and developmental biology, first year
2.chem 14abc, math 3ab, ls1 and 3 GEs. if you’re pre-med i advise you never tell anyone your gpa.
3.taking 4 this quarter, and it’s pretty doable (so far). just don’t party, drink, or do drugs, manage your time well and all is good.
4. all i know is that there are not a lot of options in chemistry… for organic chem there is only one teacher and i think 2 for 14ab. usually avoiding bad teachers comes into play when you take GEs.</p>
<p>im also a 1st-year pre-pharmacy student, but the classes are pretty similar for pharm and med at this point.</p>
<ol>
<li>biochemistry</li>
<li>fall quarter: math 32a, chem 20a, history 1c (GE), bioengineering 10 (yeah i switched out)
winter quarter: chem 20b, chem 20L, poli sci 40</li>
<li>i took four courses in my fall quarter, and i honestly dont think it’s that bad. of course it depends on which classes you take (im sure taking math, chem, chem lab, and physics or something along those lines would be quite difficult). definitely manageable though. and i disagree to some level with the poster above me - i wouldnt say dont party or have fun whatever…just have the discipline to know when to work and when to have fun. college is more than grades.</li>
<li>i havent met any professors that i would definitely avoid. if youre going to be a biochemistry major, youll be taking the chem 20 series, and for chem 20a, i really did not like dr. scerri. to be objective though, he was a decent teacher, i just did not appreciate his attitude at all (i heard he might not be teaching next year…dont quote me on that). also, i was very happy with dr. tolbert for chem 20b even though her reviews on bruinwalk.com say otherwise. </li>
</ol>
<p>for the most part, youll probably start by taking math and science with a GE. eventually though, you’ll have to start taking the LS (life science) classes as well as physics, along with both chem and chem labs. so eventually you’ll probably want to hold off on GEs. plus if you save some GEs for later, such as senior year, itll be nice to have some easier classes just before graduation.</p>
<p>dont worry about it too much though…there is a decent amount of flexibility in schedule planning. be prepared to be challenged though.</p>
<p>thanks for the responses guys. I have another question though… I heard that premed students were supposed to take chem 14 series, and that the chem 20 series are for engineering students… Chem 20 may be the requirement for biochem but if I decided to go into Neuroscience I have the choice of choosing between chem 14 and 20. Which should I choose? Would I be losing anything if I did choose to go into chem 20? Is Chem 20 still part of the requirements for premed?</p>
<p>If you don’t get accepted right out of undergraduate and still want to pursue the same medical career, you work, build up your resume, take some classes at a local college, and apply again the next year. :)</p>
<p>I heard the Chem 14 series was for pre-med students.</p>
<p>its not that the chem 14 series for premed students…it just so happens that most premeds are life science majors, and chem 14 is the life science series for chem. yes biochemistry is a physical science, and chem 20/30 is for physical science and engineering majors.</p>
<p>im pretty sure all med schools will accept both. the chem 20/30 series consists of 5 chem classses and 4 labs (you may or may not have to take all of them depending on major) and the 14 series consists of 4 classes and 2 labs. so the 14 series is less chem…although that may or may not be a good thing. i have heard that, for pharmacy at least, some schools prefer the 20 series just because you get more of a background in chem, but im not sure how much this affects their admissions</p>
<p>also, if youre a life science major and want to switch into physical sciences, you would have to switch into the 20/30 series. however, if you take the 20 series and decide to switch into life sciences, it will count for life sciences as well (so you wouldnt have to take 14)</p>
<p>Ohhh okay the whole chem 14/20 deal makes sense now. Thanks guys! So, if I fail the first time applying to med school I can either apply again next year or go into a prehealth career? Would I have to attend school again or can I just go straight into prehealth?</p>
<p>As general advice, it seems like every 4th student you meet is “pre-med” but quite few change their mind along the way. According to the stats at the site above, in 2008 only 209 UCLA grads ended up applying to med school (this number is essentially 1st-time applicants, not those on 2nd or late tries). This is out of about 6,000 grads per year. So there is significant fallout ;)</p>
<p>My advice would be to start frosh year 1) working with the career center to make sure you understand the requirements (you can also get some good books from Amazon) 2) start taking part in volunteer work in a medical setting to make sure its right for you and to keep your motivation up 3) try to get involved in research.
Wow, you need to learn a lot more about this! Please, please, start working with the career center right away to understand your options.</p>
<p>Wow only 209 applied? Haha I see… Yeah there’s still a lot that I don’t know/understand so I’ll be sure to check with the career center. Are there any other premeds or people who know about the whole premed deal out there who would like to help me out?</p>
<p>The statistics above don’t really tell the whole story because quite a bit of pre-meds do not apply for immediate admission to med school. A lot of people take a year (or more) off, do a post-bacc, get a masters or even a PhD, etc before applying to med school.</p>
<p>Take the 14 seriess.
No really, take the 14 series. </p>
<p>You can switch up to the 20/30 series but once in the 20/30 series, you can’t switch down (doesn’t make sense but thats how they do it). Many will say Biochem 153 is one of the hardest courses in the hard sciences here at UCLA. Those who have taken Chem 30C and 30CL and Biochem 153 will also say that Biochem 153 is an angel compared to Chem 30CL. </p>
<p>Take the 14 series. Although if you’re a Biochem major, you’ll be forced to take the 20/30 series so just a heads up on the difficulty level.</p>
<p>Well if you’re sure you won’t switch to a physical science major, then take the 14 series. And as mentioned before, pre-health careers are basically those like dental, opto, ortho, BUT can also be careers like dietician, occupational therapist, nursing, that are all related to helping people (if that’s what you want to do) but you don’t have to go to medical school. Also, I recently attended this meeting where a international med school advertise for their medical school in the caribbean (Ross). I think the acceptance there is a little but more lenient and it’s still a great program. But you shouldn’t think about not getting into medical school anyway!</p>
<p>You don’t have to follow the two science, 1 GE thing. It’s a little better to save your GEs so that you can have an easy class when you take harder classes. Also, I’ve been taking 4 classes the past 2 quarters. I think it’s a lot of work but it’s still manageable. I still found time to just hang out or have fun (depends on how much you really want to study). And my GPA… well let’s just say I’m in the honors society, and I still qualify for honors.</p>
<p>I take four classes because I was close to becoming a junior status and so after those units, I got to pick my classes when all of the juniors picked theirs and it was almost 0 in every DIS/LEC I chose, so it was pretty nice :)</p>
<p>Per UCSDs website, consequently, it would appear that more students from there applied to med school than UCLA in 2009, depending on how many acceptances each matriculant received from the school. </p>
<p>But UCSD didn’t have more total applicants to med school than UCLA in the year in question. (And I would supply a link to UCSDs Career Center, but Im too lazy at the moment.)</p>
<p>According to the next-to-last paragrah link, those with undergrad degrees from UCLA, numbered 737 applicants in 2009 and UCSDs 450 (by the way, all UCs did well with number of apps). Does that mean that approximately 200, per UCLA Career Center, were first-time applicants and approximately 500 were second-, third-,…, time applicants? (I would Assume that the number of applicants to med school from each school would show some sort of consistency, year to year.)</p>
<p>Unless UCLA grads far surpass the national average by far of those who reapply to med school extremely doubtful for 2009, it appeared that there were around three first-time applicants of a total of four, or approximately only 25% re-applicants from all schools – then we can probably assume with a great deal of certainty that the 209 applicants from the UCLA survey wasn’t all-inclusive. </p>
<p>Rather, if UCLA followed the national trend towards applying and re-applying, which seems logical, then we could say of the 700+ UCLA applicants, 500+ would be first-timers, and 200 or so would be re-applicants.</p>
<p>This is my first time posting on this forum hopefully one of my last and because of it, I have no control over the efficacy of the html links, and the format. ;)</p>
<p>I would appreciate only those who have the experience and knowledge to reply back. No hard feelings </p>
<p>So here’s the scoop. I’m going to be a junior transfer at UCLA, MIMG major. I will be taking the Chem 20/30 Series. My G-chem series are completed from my CC and for my ochem, I have articulation agreements from my ONE SEMESTER of o-chem at my CC that has given me credit for 30A, and 30BL. I will be taking Chem 30B this coming Fall 2010 Quarter and Chem 30C for the Winter (–> Some medical Schools want 30C). I need to know if I need to also take Chem30CL for medical school? </p>
<p>Please keep in mind that MOST medical schools say they want 1 year of Ochem Lecture with Lab, but its hard to interpret whether or not this also means one year of Laboratory as well. UCLA’s basic ochem series is 30A, B, and BL, yet as you can see this is only 2 quarters of lecture and 1 of lab.</p>
<p>If you guys google " UCLA Medical school requirements" you can get a PDF that states:</p>
<p>“Two years of CHEMISTRY (through Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry) ␣ The Chemistry 14-series (through 14D) or the 20/30 series (through 30C) and Biochemistry 153A & 153L can satisfy this requirement.”
—> Once again, its hard to interpret whether 30CL is required.</p>
<p>If you check out the UCLA career center website it states:</p>
<p>“Physical, life or non-science majors: Chemistry 20A, 20B/L, 30A/AL, 30B/BL, 30C*; plus 153A/L (biochemistry). *Chem 30CL may not be required for applicants from the life science majors.”
—> MIMG is a lifesci major so I guess that a good thing. And notice for Organic Chemistry, they have 3 quarters of lecture (30A, B, C) and one quarter of lab (Chem 30BL) which are BOLDED.</p>
<p>If anyone has specific experience in this area, please get back to me as soon as possible. </p>