My Major

Nontraditional Premed Discussion
1

Hi Everyone!


I’ve been dropping in reading posts for several months and finally decided to register. I’ve never posted on a forum/chat before so we’ll see how this goes…


Same story as you all know by now, 37 years old, going back to school after nearly 17 years to finish a B.S. before hopefully heading off to D.O. school. Mostly I’ve been a professional fine artist, designer, author and mother with a long, successful career, which most recently includes owning a wellness center and designing/running a hospital based massage therapy program for the past 5 years. I heard about a Dr. Fullford and really started looking at Osteopathic medicine and fell in love! Anyhow, there’s more but I don’t want to bore you all… the point is, I really want to be a Family Practice D.O. and I’m planning on doing a B.S. major in Family Studies/Human Development with a minor in pre-med. I’ve been taking a lot of accelerated science classes (gen. chem, physics, stats, etc) at the community college to save time & money while still running my clinic and hospital program. So far I have a 4.0 (but now in summer Physics so we’ll see!)Anyhow, will this major/minor plan hurt my chances of getting into D.O. school? Do I need to major in biochem or physiology to be competitive? I know this question gets asked all the time but it’s intimidating to see all these younger students running around insisting that you have to major in a hardcore science to get into med school. What do you guys think?

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NO, you absolutely do NOT have to major in a hard science to get into med school. Major in what you are most interested in. Do very well in your science classes. You will do fine.


Mary

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No any major will be fine the bottom line is GPA, MCAT and then the rest of the app, in fact this is not said enough, Bio majors for premed is a “Dime a Dozen” seen all the time, the people who stand out with awesome stats are the ones who majored in something different, My favorite is a Concert Violinist I read about who got into medical school, just think what the ADCOM thought, “WOW look at this person, how talented!” Thats what you want the “WOW factor”.

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Major in anything. Do well academically. Try very hard to get your pre-med reqs at a four-year institution.


Cheers,


Judy

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  • jcolwell Said:
Major in anything. Do well academically. Try very hard to get your pre-med reqs at a four-year institution.

Cheers,

Judy



I would listen to Judy she really knows about these things.


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I too am a new user here and am only just beginning the process of going back to undergrad to take my pre-req’s. I’m thrilled to have found this site. Mary, your story/background is definitely inspiring, thanks so much for your reply to the other post!

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Thanks so much for the insight. I have to say I really like your example about the violinist. I am hoping to bring a creative side to medicine. This past week I met with an advisor at U of A about switching my major to A&P (which I do enjoy about as much as Human Development) so I’m considering it, but the math requirement would mean 3 more courses for me thru Calc II which I really don’t want to waste time doing. For now I’m thinking about sticking to my original plan and just taking an extra A&P course or two as electives. I’ve already taken college algebra and statistics so unless you can see any reason (MCAT?)to go down the shadowy Calculus path I probably won’t venture lightly into that good night…

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Many med schools require “math through Calc [single variable].” Check the MSAR to see what the requirements are for schools that you are interested in.


Cheers,


Judy