My school is partnered with Tulsa Tech (a votech kind of school) where you can spend half of your school day at one of their campuses and take classes there that count towards credit for your overall high school career and GPA and all. They have a nursing class. It is three hours long. So basically I would spend my morning on that tech campus and come back before 4th period and then take AP Lit, AP Calc, and AP Bio. So in total my classes would be nursing, AP Lit, AP Calc, AP Bio. Only thing is the nursing classes are not weighted. At the end of first semester I would be an official CNA since I turn 18 a month after school would start.
My questions are:
Should I go through with this or let my senior year course load be AP Lit, AP Calc, AP Bio, AP Human Geo, Human Body Systems (a pltw class), and then some other elective?
Would colleges like to see this on my transcript and see that I am passionate about the medical field? (I really want to be a doctor)
Would it give me a leg up on admissions?
I suspect not. Nursing is not a “stepping stone” to medical school; it is a profession in its own right. Your prep for pre-med should be rigorous courses in all areas, but particularly in math and science (looks like you are on the right track). Pre-med is not really a major either, so you would be applying to college as a major in any number of fields (and nursing would not likely be one of them - an RN nursing degree program is not really compatible with a pre-med major, since the program is very restrictive with the last two years being almost entirely clinical work.) While a CNA certification would show your interest in the medical field, that show of interest is not nearly as necessary for college admissions as it is for medical school. So, I’m not sure what the CNA would get you (although you could get a part-time job while in college). I don’t think it would hurt, but ask yourself why you are doing it and what you hope to get out of it.
For med school, I would not do that at all. First of all, your undergraduate doesn’t care about your interest in med school. They care about what major you might want to do and are you prepared for that major. Many pre-med students major in biology, but you can major in anything you want (chem, math, psycholgy, whatever) as long as you take the pre-req classes (bio, chem, org chem, calc, physics, english, etcetc) in college.
I would take the “normal” classes…AP Lit, AP Calc, AP Bio, AP Human Geo, Human Body Systems (a pltw class), and then some other elective? (Maybe AP Psych instead of AP Human Geo? Look at colleges of interest and see what classes they give AP credit for).
No I don’t see vocational classes as helpful as harder classes in traditional academic fields like math bio, english, history, flanguage. What type colleges are you looking at?
Thank you!!! I think I will stick with regular coursework!!! 