<p>Hey all,
So I'm currently a junior in high school who is in love with uva.
I'm curious if one could double major in math and biochem while doing premed courses and still having a life? I am a very curious person with a passion for those two areas but I also want a true college experience complete with frat parties athletics and all of that
Thanks in advance for any feedback</p>
<p>I also would want some freedom to take other classes cause I saw the list of classes not to miss and they all sound great.</p>
<p>You could do it, but it’s dependent on a couple of factors. Firstly, it would be much easier to do if you had Echols status (no distribution requirements). A lot of it will have to do with how well you manage time and what else you want to do. As a biochemistry major who’s just completed his first semester, I can’t give you a perfect idea of what you’ll face, but I’m sure that with good planning and good time management that you’ll be able to do what you want.</p>
<p>Let me know if you have any questions.</p>
<p>Edit: Hazelorb can give you a better idea of what you’ll face with the mathematics major.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback,
I have been reading some of these threads and just realized that if i put myself through that I would risk missing the true college experience so if when the time comes I find myself in charlottesville I would probably maybe minor in math with bio/chem major. </p>
<p>I don’t really want to take 5 classes each semester and I want to have the liberty to take classes that I want to take outside of my major and since those two fields seem so close I would want to mix it up a lot</p>
<p>thanks again and good luck</p>
<p>Funny story, one of my good friends, who is a second year, is currently planning to do a Math and Biochem double major as a pre-med. He is an echols scholar and went to TJ to give you an idea of the brainpower behind this kid.</p>
<p>Anyway, the man never stops working…like he literally never stops. His weekly work included math hw for our Survey of Algebra class (which took a good 8 hours with help to complete), his organic chem lecture homework (another 6ish?), his chem lab reports (an entire weekend), his bio lab work (when he found the time) and his cs hw (as long as it takes). Not to mention the reading he also had to do for all his classes (??? hours). There was one point this past semester that he went a 3 day period with less than 8 hours because of consecutive tests in orgo, bio, cs and math. Note, a lot of the science classes he is taking now are not even the higher level classes like biochem and cell bio, etc. (in his defense though he did take the honors orgo). He is still simply working to complete the pre-med requirements!</p>
<p>That said, the man is 4.0ing the math major because he is a straight up genius, but the science classes are starting to hurt him because he is running out of time for all the work. The math major is also very time intensive (I’m a math major, I know). Can’t do everything…even when you spend all your time studying. I think he is still gonna go the course with both majors, but he’d honestly be better off single majoring in math and just finishing up the pre-med reqs. </p>
<p>Bottomline, math and biochem double = no time for fun and not the greatest GPA either as a result.</p>
<p>I did not find the math major to be as time intensive as 110percent. I would almost always take 2 math classes every semester (I came in with Calc and Diff Eq finished so I started with my 300 level classes) and would spend about 4 hours per Sunday on the majority of the homework, with any tricky ones being saved for later in the week – office hours, processing before going to sleep, etc. I would usually work by myself, but sometimes I would get myself into a study group. It is whatever you need to motivate yourself to do your homework at a regular time, because math homework CAN take as long as you devote to it (those really hard proofs that you have to think to do) so if it was due Thursday, like I said, I was starting on Sunday. I think I posted more about my study habits here: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-virginia/1122215-grade-inflation-deflation.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-virginia/1122215-grade-inflation-deflation.html</a></p>
<p>I am a big fan of sleep so I never do anything to impact that. I was in 2 singing groups, on my dorm’s governance board, a few clubs, worked 2 jobs, and still went out at once or twice a weekend (and stayed in once or twice to relax or do work). I guess you can consider the ed program a double major, but with the way I planned it out, I was done my math major by the end of my 3rd year and just did ed classes after that.</p>
<p>I managed to take electives like fiction writing, 2 extra math classes, an extra semester in my foreign language requirement language, a semester of a brand new language my 4th year, 2 ed electives, and a computer science elective. I only had maybe 3 requirement classes to take because of my AP credits. What I found through those (many on the list not to miss) was that I really wasn’t interested enough in things outside of my major to do an entire semester on a class. I enjoyed teaching classes through my dorm for 1 credit, and I also enjoyed the 1 credit seminars, like History of UVa through UGuides (under the department LASE).</p>
<p>I know that the pre-med requirements really drag on a lot of people, they are weed out classes and you will need time to devote to them. I think minoring in math, if not just taking classes here and there, is a good idea. I considered doing a minor in my foreign language, in astronomy (it is, like, 5 classes), computer science, etc, but in the end I decided to just take the classes that I wanted and not worry if it equated to a minor or not. This led me to have more room for other electives and I do not feel that I missed out on any classes I really wanted to take.</p>
<p>You will be taking about 5 classes per semester (15 credits… maybe only 4 classes in sciences with labs)… I took 2 12-credit semesters. The first one, my 2nd year, was horrible. I was bored out of my mind. I liked 13-14 credits much better. The second one, my last semester of my 5th year, was fantastic. I was much busier outsite of school. I was working 10 hours a week, tutoring 4-5 kids, writing my master’s paper, one of my classes was an independent project that to get the credit I needed to work on for 10 hours per week minimum plus meetings, plus my extra curriculars (singing, volunteering, clubs, etc). So that was a lot busier, plus it was the last time I would ever see many of my friends as frequently in CVille so I went out with them a LOT.</p>
<p>I also want to point out that math in college is nothing like math in high school. You will want to take a few classes before committing to proof based learning, which is entirely different than the arithmetic you have been doing all through high school.</p>
<p>Let me know if you have more questions!</p>
<p>It is easier to do a double major if: a) you can get most or all of the foreign language requirement out of the way through the placement test, and b) you have lots of AP credit. If you have varied interests, it is usually better to stick with one major. When I was at UVa, I purposefully tried to take at least one course in every department in the College, to provide a varied perspective. The only one I regretted was Intro to Sociology. </p>
<p>Then again, if you have lots of AP credit, for many people (other than pre-meds), I believe a better use of time is to try to get an accelerated masters degree than a double major.</p>
<p>Hey, hazelorb and charlieschm
thanks so much for your feedback and wow hazelorb that was quite the post. I know its pretty early to be thinking about this stuff but i like getting the info sooner then later, and your guys posts were super helpful.
Thanks again</p>
<p>110percent,
I have no clue how i missed your post before but thanks so much for your feedback too and that is pretty intimidating actually…
I would not want to spend all my time doing work, UVa would be too great a place for that so i would probably just take classes I want to and not worry about what it amounts to, that would be the real college experience.</p>