That works for most majors, but it doesn’t work especially well for engineering majors which often:
This.
One thing to remember…your undergrad major will not be a consideration when you apply to medical school. BUT it could be the source of course work to help with a Plan B should medical school not work out.
There are students who major in bioengineering and become doctors. You can message me for more details.
So my two cents is combining engineering and premed is very hard. Obviously some kids pull it off, but either one of those paths is hard enough with lots of people either getting weeded out or deciding to do something else. So I think you need to be very cautious about trying to do both.
An alternative plan is just to get started in premed and then figure out what else you like as you go. It can be a convenience majoring in something like Bio or Chem because of the overlap in core courses. But as others are pointing out, you can typically do a lot of different majors too, including because the premed courses will usually fill a bunch of general education/distributional requirements, leaving you plenty of credits for an essentially unrelated major.
So like my S24 is a possible premed at WashU, and he might do a Bio major, but he also might do a second major in Classics (he takes advanced Latin classes for fun anyway, and the credit requirements for Classics are relatively light), and possibly a minor in Economics. WashU is particularly good for that sort of combining, but really many colleges will have a curriculum that will allow you to do a variety of majors, or possibly multiple majors, while still being premed.
But coming full circle, there are a few majors that are just way more credit-intensive and with specific sequences you might need to follow if you want to graduate in four years. Again, engineering majors tend to be on that list. Serious Performing or Fine Arts majors. Architecture. And so on. Again, not necessarily impossible, but way harder.
So I think unless you really, really are passionate about something like that, usually it would be best to do something else more easily combined with premed. And you typically do not need to figure that out in HS, you can explore a bit in college before deciding.
I’ll answer your question with a question. Why premed?
Many HS students can only think of a few medical occupations so they pick doctor. But doctors are far from the only ones in the health field that help people. Physical therapists, radiology techs, perfusionists, speech pathologists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, to name but just a few as shown on http://explorehealthcareers.org Careers that pay well and take less than 11+ years of education and training plus the immense debt that comes with a M.D.
Calling oneself “pre-med” is simple; pick a life-science major or sign up for Calc and Chem frosh year and you’re on your way. The flip side is the attrition rate is tremendous. At many colleges there were probably 2 or 3 starting frosh year calling themselves pre-med for every one that actually ends up applying to med school, and only about 40% get in. So given that less that 20% of those end up as doctors you may want to give a fair amount of time pondering majors and colleges you’d like if you weren’t pre-med.
Until you’ve carefully considered the alternatives and have first-hand volunteer experience I suggest thinking of yourself at the stage of considering medicine. Start on volunteering to see if medicine is right for you. Which actually may turn out to be earning a M.D.
However, mechanical engineering tends to have a very crowded schedule, so fitting in the non-overlapping pre-med courses (biology, organic chemistry, biochemistry) may be difficult. This can be an issue with other high volume majors that do not have lots of overlap with pre-med courses.
Seems like, from a pre-med standpoint, college majors fall into a few categories:
Obviously, what you are interested in studying matters, since a subject you are interested in is one where you are more likely to maintain a pre-med-worthy GPA in.
Also note that if you use AP or community college credit to cover introductory level courses that are pre-med requirements, the common expectation is to take more advanced level courses in the same subject area, so the AP or community college credit does not actually reduce the number of courses needed (unless the subject is your major that you will be taking many more advanced level courses in anyway).
I think that is a really useful taxonomy.
The only thing I might add is these high volume majors you are mentioning may also have specific sequences of courses you need to take, such that they end up dictating a lot of your classes in certain terms. And then at many colleges, completely the premed classes in time to go to med school without a gap/glide year may also be like that in several terms.
So there can be an overall credit crunch, and then in specific terms it may well be practically impossible to do everything you are supposed to be doing to stay on sequence. Possibly you can make it up in the summer, but you may want to be doing other things those summers. And then what if you are interested in study abroad . . . .
I know this is premature for the OP generally, but I do think sometimes kids asking these questions should pick a possible college of interest and go through the process of trying to map out a four-year schedule, paying attention to all the required courses and their prereqs, plus any other general education/distributional requirements (which can have specific timing too, sometimes, such as a mandatory first-year writing seminar). I think it can be very illuminating to see what that actually looks like, and the challenges that can arise.
As a Georgia resident, some of the main in-state colleges I have been looking at are UGA and Georgia Tech. I would prefer to go to Georgia Tech because it is closer to home, more highly regarded, and I like the campus and environment there. However, I have heard that since Georgia Tech is very tech/engineering oriented it might not be as good for pre med as UGA. Do you think UGA would be a better undergrad option for pre med or does it not matter?
It doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter, but you will need to be able to manage the rigor, especially depending on your major.
I’m considering doing a neuro major for pre med. Could you tell me more about that? Is it relatively easy to maintain a good gpa? Is it a good option career wise (will I be okay job-wise if med doesn’t work out)? What kinds of things do you learn in a neuro major?
That’s the wrong part here. For some it may be easy. For others not. But considering it and you know nothing about it is not good.
It’s easy to see a curriculum.
You can see various sub majors here. Then click on one and plan of study. I linked careers too. You are going about this the wrong way.
Find a major that interests you. There is no gaming college. Some ace engineering. Others fail recreation. If you want easy, go to a major school’s website with large football team, click on player profiles, and you’ll see a lot of commonalities amongst majors. I’d surmise those are likely easier than others.
College is for learning. You are not paying for As. You are paying to grow.
Remember- this is a journey.
You do not need to decide on a major today, and even if you do…it is common to change your mind as your interests grow, change, etc.
If you decide on neuroscience with premed intentions, you will need to take the medical school requirements as well as those needed for the major.
There are students who do exceptionally well, but I have not heard any of them say that it is “relatively easy” to achieve a high gpa. Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses, but most work and study…a lot.
Neuroscience, as a general rule, will require you to continue your education. This could be medical school ….or it could be a different career path.
Could you get a job? Yes, but these jobs are typically “glide year” positions…as most/many return to school.
As noted, major in something you find interesting.
THIS. Please listen to this.
Same answers as everyone else, and I would tie them together.
You can get started on the premed track without knowing for sure what you will major in, what else you would do if you decide not to go to medical school, what that would mean in terms of further higher education, and so on. None of that actually needs to be decided by the time you are starting college. Because you will know you should start taking the premed prereqs, plus some other classes that make sense for you given the college’s general education requirements, which will be enough to figure out your first term schedule, maybe your whole first year. And then you can let how that goes guide the decisions you make down the road.
Given that, you should just pick a college that has the required med school prereqs (not exactly a very restrictive requirement if you are looking at large research universities, LACs, or other such colleges), and then that also has an overall curriculum that you find attractive.
Flagship publics are almost always among the good choices given that framework, because they are usually designed to serve a lot of different kids coming from that state with different interests and career goals. Georgia, though, is one of the states which basically has both a flagship-level tech university (Georgia Tech) and then another flagship-level university (UGA). This usually happened because there is an older flagship that was founded before tech stuff really was taught much at US colleges, and then the state created a new college to do the tech stuff. In this case, UGA actually claims to be the oldest public university in the US, chartered in 1785. Georgia Tech was then not founded until 1885 (basically as part of the industrialization movement that was happening in the South post-Civil War).
One of the confusing things in situations like this is often there is not a complete division of labor, there is overlap, even if the overall focus is somewhat different. So Georgia Tech is one of the top engineering colleges in the world, but plenty of people also successfully study engineering at UGA. And both have all the stuff you would need for premed.
Still, my two cents is UGA is probably the better choice if you are truly open-minded. Like, some people end up liking to combine Humanities majors with premed. Or you might decide you would rather be a lawyer instead of a doctor, and would reasonably see a Humanities major as good law school prep. And although you can do an engineering major at UGA, you can’t, say, do an English, Philosophy, or Classics major at Georgia Tech.
So in that sense, a flagship like UGA is (by design) going to really maximize your options for majors, and alternative paths if you decide not to do medical school. Which combined with favorable in-state tuition makes them popular choices for premeds, as they rightly should be.