How do-able depends on what else you’ve got going. I also took O-chem, bio and physics at the same time - it added up to 13 credits and I found that to be plenty to keep me busy. I was NOT employed. If I’d had to balance a job with that coursework I think it would’ve been really really difficult. Three lab courses is very time-consuming.
Mary
It’s doable, but like Mary said, it depends on how much else you have going on in your life. I would make sure you have the ability to not work if things get to hairy academically. I took biology, physics, gen chem and calculus (labs with the sciences) at the same time and worked part time. The worst part can be the labs - they chew up a lot of time being their, and ochem labs can take a lot of outside time to do lab reports and etc.
What about the rest of your labs, though? You don’t have any bio labs listed and you only list labs for one semester of gen chem and ochem. Med school requirements usually specify one year of labs as well.
Well, I suppose I’ll jump on the bandwagon here. Hopefully everyone will figure out their schedules so that it works for them though!
Fall 2007
15 units
BIOL 1 – General Biology (4 units)
CHEM 1B – General Chemistry (5 units)
MATH 30 – Analytical Geometry & Calculus (5 units)
PE 43 – Scuba Diving (1 unit)
Spring 2008
14 units
BIOL 2 – Botany (4 units)
BIOL 3 – General Zoology (4 units)
MATH 31 – Analytical Geometry & Calculus (4 units)
PE 44 – Advanced Scuba Diving (2 units)
I’m hoping this is realistically possible with a part-time job…I need to do at least one shift (12 hours) per week with AMR if I get hired on part-time with them to stay employed. So that schedule is with 12-24hrs/wk of work I suppose, since I’ll try to pick up a second shift if I have time for extra money.
I’m a little worried about your Spring '08 schedule. You need to consider MCAT prep as equivalent to a 3-hour course. Sure, lots of the subject material will be fresh, but much of the MCAT prep work is in taking practice exams and evaluating what went well and what went poorly with EVERY FLIPPING QUESTION, which takes some time.
Can you take the Physics separately from its lab and squeeze it into the second half of your summer schedule? Hmm, that’s probably crazy intense, too.
Maybe take MCAT mid-summer so you have some time to study for it, and wait for fall to take biochem. You can have the rest of your application complete except for MCAT scores and then be ready to roll as soon as those scores arrive.
The rest looks doable and I like the way you haven’t packed your labs too intensely.
Thanks everyone for the advice!
I am going to volunteer while enrolled in summer session. After summer session ends, I am planning to work part-time in a healthcare position that will expose me to physician-patient interactions. Since it’s valuable experience, I am hoping that I can do work part-time and attend classes. Howwever, I do have the option to not work, if I am unable to manage the varying priorities.
The only reason I’m planning to take the MCATs in Spring is if I’m eligible for the school’s linkage program. Of course, that depends on how well I perform in my postbac studies.
Can someone shed some advice on applying to linkage programs, especially those with a condensed curriculum?
In registering for the biology classes at my school, they already include the labs, and so I did not list them separately.
What type of position did you work for part-time while enrolled in postbac classes? On average, how many hours did you work per week?
I worked as an EMT and I tutored Spanish. I worked anywhere from 12 - 40 hours in a week, depending on how many shifts we could pick up. A caveat - we had 24 hour shifts, so if I could pick up a weekend shift, I got in a lot more hours. Also, I was able to study some (actually quite a bit on weekends) once we had our station duties done and we weren’t on calls.