Picking Courses - What to and NOT to take together?

Hello everyone,


This is my first post so maybe a little background is indicated. I am a 23 year old paramedic. My original goals in life were to do special operations search and rescue in the Airforce (Pararescue). I tore up my knees (bilateral chondromalacia) and tore up my shoulder (bankart lesion). Unfortunately this combination of injuries has disqualified me from any form of highly physical job. Fortunately all throughout paramedic school and at my places of employment I have had a lot of encouragement to pursue medical school due to my age and (apparent) intelligence. The love for the idea was never absent but confidence was. I got over the fears and got into the major 4-year university in my city to start this summer.


Now to my topic. I have taken the vast majority of the non-science GenEd requirements at my community college . Luckily I postponed the sciences as a “just in case.” With that said the only real “sophmore” level classes I have left to take, outside of the medical school prereqs, are American History 2 and some other humanity like Religion or Music Lit. My question is, when picking my classes (full time load), what is the best way to arrange your courses for the best success? My only inference is that starting the chemistry sequence as early as possible makes sense because it is the longest. The obvious solution would be start my upper level non-sciences concurrent with the prereqs but my major is Health Sciences. College Trig is also to be thrown in there somehow.


Any advice or experience such as “no physics and chemistry!” or “dont take trig and bio!” would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks guys.



Take trig before physics. It will help immensely. As for mixing and matching the others, it’s hard to predict. Ochem is very time intensive, so it’s best to put that with something that may not be as challenging for you. For some people, that’s biology because the bio labs tend to not be too tough. For other people, bio and ochem are both tons of memorization and that’s too much for them to handle. YMMV.

I think the most feared combo is:


Calculus + Physics + Orgo = Suicide


Many avoid even just Physics + Orgo


I took Physics II and Orgo I together. Definitely time consuming but doable.



I cannot do two of any sort of math class together. I consider Chemistry and Physics as math classes. I am not majoring in a science and do not intend on taking Calculus so that this works for me. I wish I loved math, but, I do not. Best of luck!

Not that this applies to you specifically, but others perhaps so. I am in an Arts/Science degree minoring in Bio and Studio Art with pre-med courses as electives. Halfway through my second term…


I am finding it very taxing to switch mindsets between studio art and pure science classes. Part of it is to do well in the studio you have to put in lots of time…time that could be used for memorization and practice of science stuff.