What is it really like to major in biology??

College Majors Science Majors
1

Hello!! I’ll be entering college as a freshman for the fall 2019 term as a bio major + pre med student. I recently attended an admitted students weekend at one of my top choice colleges and got to stay with a student host (bio major) and attend an intro biology class. The biology majors I met seemed to get very little sleep (I’m worried bc I CANNOT function without getting sleep), and now I’m very stressed for college. I’m scared that I won’t be able to handle the rigorous coursework. I took AP bio my junior year, but didn’t take the exam, and I’ve retained basically no information from that class. I still have a few questions so if you can answer with your experience, I’ll be very grateful!!!

-How much sleep do you get as a bio major/pre med? And how do you make time for sleep??
-How much time do you spend studying each day??
-Do you feel like you don’t have time to do other things you love??
-What is the hardest thing about majoring in biology?
-If you didn’t take AP bio, do you feel like taking bio in college is really hard??
-What tips should I keep in mind?? About both being a bio major and pre med???

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!!!

2

@biomedjunkie So I am not yet in college but I am going to be a college freshman majoring in biochemistry+ premed. I have a couple of friends majoring in biology and in college so I’ll try to answer a couple of your questions from what I know.

Sleep in college can be difficult but for the most part, if you do your homework in a timely manner and get it done not at 2 AM then you shouldn’t have many problems. For me, sleep is also incredibly important so I will be working hard to get my homework done in a timely manner and not pile it on for the last night before. Which I’m sure happens to many people. College is college, they cram a lot of information in a short amount of time.

Biology is a lot of memorizing information. So it can take a lot of time to memorize it which is probably why premed students spend a lot of time studying since they need to be the top of their classes to be an actual candidate for medical school. Being premed from what I have heard can be really competitive since you are going to be with a lot of other premed students studying biology, or any biological sciences major. I’m not really sure of the time management for doing things you love but I have heard from a lot of people that you have a ton of free time it’s just how you choose to use it. So I am sure you’ll still have time for friends and fun.

Like I said before I am not in college yet but like I said before, Bio is a lot of memorizing (like from AP bio) so that could be the hard part about it. Also, it’s competitive because many premed students take bio as a major.

I am currently taking AP Bio and from my class, it has been a ton of memorizing and a little bit of applying in class to outside problems. But the AP Bio is just the intro course in college, there are many other courses you will be taking. If you’ve taken other AP classes and have done well then I am sure you will do well in college too. My college I am going to requires me to take the intro to Biology class even if I pass the AP exam so I am pretty certain that I will do well in that class since I have already taken it in school. However, the pace will be different since they put it into one semester instead of a full year.

Maybe some tips from me would be to not stress a ton and just enjoy the college experience! I have been stressing about it too because I really want to be a doctor but there are a ton of hoops I will have to get through to get there. I think being a bio major you should also be open to other majors as well. You might come upon something you find more fascinating and want to major in that instead. Which is perfectly fine because med schools love a variety of applicants. So just enjoy the end of your senior year and try to tackle it one step at a time. I’ll be doing the same thing!

3

Thank you so much for responding!! I’m pretty nervous for college since I feel like that’s the point in my life where everything I chose to do/not do actually matters…but at the same time I’m a little excited too!! Really thank you for answering my questions!! Your response is really helpful. Good luck to you in college/pre med and beyond :slight_smile:

4

My daughter is chem e major and her roommate is pre-med biochem major. I can answer some of your questions based on what I know they do…

-Sleep is a priority for both of them. They have a lights out agreement of midnight during the week and they both get up at 8 ish. Their goal is 8 hours/night. In terms of how they do it, again, it’s a priority so they make good use of their time during the day.

When DD was visiting, she got the advice to look at school like a job. Get up at the same time every day, regardless of when your classes start, and start studying. Keep to a schedule.

-How much time do you spend studying each day??

For every hour spent in class, DD spend an additional 1 - 2 hours studying outside of class. Some classes are more than others. She takes 18 credit hours so she roughly spends an additional 40 hours studying/week (outside of classes).

-Do you feel like you don’t have time to do other things you love??

Both DD and roommate are involved in clubs and activities. My DD does theater - was in a show plus helping staging manage another. She is in an academic club as well.

-If you didn’t take AP bio, do you feel like taking bio in college is really hard??

D’s roommate’s HS didn’t offer AP bio but she did fine.

-What tips should I keep in mind?? About both being a bio major and pre med???

You will work hard. Your grades will matter from day 1. It’s doable and you can still study and have fun.

5

So as a just-about-to-graduate biochemistry major who is attending medical school this fall, I will offer some first hand advice.

-How much sleep do you get as a bio major/pre med? And how do you make time for sleep??

6-8 hours of sleep on average. Obviously this can vary with projects, procrastinating, tests, but that’s typically what I get. You get sleep by staying organized, starting your homework and studying early and doing a little bit every day. No one is perfect and I didn’t always organize my time the best, but that’s what you should strive for.

-How much time do you spend studying each day??

Several hours in the evening probably (though a lot of the studying is usually just trying to complete weekly homework). Depends on how difficult my course load is. The amount of studying ramps up during midterm season.

-Do you feel like you don’t have time to do other things you love??

No. On top of school, I also volunteered and worked in a research lab, but I also found time to take piano lessons, do art, and hang out with friends. However, you do have to make the effort to work those things in—it’s very easy to just shut yourself in your room and nap forever.

-What is the hardest thing about majoring in biology?

Organic chemistry is challenging for a lot of people. Although I liked ochem and enjoyed the challenge. For premed specifically, I’d say the hardest thing is juggling maintaining high grades with a pretty high and sustained amount of extracurricular activities. Also, studying for the MCAT during school and then applying/interviewing during schools was pretty hectic too.

-What tips should I keep in mind?? About both being a bio major and pre med???

I’m going to disagree with post #1 and say that approaching biology (and science in general) as a memorization exercise is a very high school level approach. Memorization is still important, but understanding the concepts behind the phenomena you learn will lessen the memorization burden and allow you to solve problems logically and analytically, even problems that you may not exactly have seen before! Very important skill for the MCAT as well.

My tips: Get involved with activities that you genuinely enjoy. Do a bit of research on what you should be doing to make yourself competitive for applying to medical school. Make time for the friends and family in your life. Don’t be afraid to ask professors/TAs/advisors for help at any point. Take care of your mental health. Don’t get swept away with the freedom of college and party yourself sick in your first year, but be open to making friends and trying new things.

6

My son is pre-vet but his gf is pre-med biology major. They both set study times and try to get 8 hours of sleep a night. They do spend a lot of weekends studying but they have great social lives too (and great grades). They are both Greek and son is president of his fraternity. She does cancer research at the school and volunteers at the local hospital. He works for the physics department. They both took AP Bio but my son retained very little of it. He got one of the highest grades in his class.

He was telling me the other day that in his How to Teach seminar he takes through the physics department he has learned how important it is to understand the concept and not just memorize. He used a lot of videos recommended by vet or med students to help with comprehension. For him this showed the most in physics. He took A/P physics and bombed the test because he learned nothing in the class (got an A but how I don’t know). In college he rocked physics 1 and 2 and they asked him to LA (undergrad TA). So keep really understanding in mind.

Hardest thing is to not over stress yourself. His gf took way too many courses. She didn’t have to take 18 or 21 hours a semester to get finished. She did well but first semester stressed herself way out. This semester she is taking a dance class to help destress and a slightly lighter load. You will be fine!

7

The stress for many biology majors may be because many of them start out as pre-meds. Pre-meds need to earn very high college GPAs to avoid being weeded out of the possibility of getting into any medical school:

A = acceptable
B = bad
C = catastrophic
D = disastrous
F = …

So that can be a source of stress and the belief that more time studying is needed.

8

I suspect that many students don’t use their time wisely.

Read this book: How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less by Cal Newport. It helps you with things like time management and how to figure out what to write about for a paper, etc.