Are your parents in STEM or bio-related fields themselves?
@writerofwords – search the web for “which colleges in the northeast offer a major that is a mix of biomedical science and writing/communications”.
Also search the web for “which liberal arts colleges make it easy to major in biology but take a lot of writing/journalism courses”. You can tell your Mom, “ok ok ok for chrissake, I’ll definitely major in biology and probably even apply to freaking medical school if you let me go to _______.” After four years, you’ll have your bachelor’s degree and anything can happen at that point.
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Yes! I think I’ve shared this here before. My niece went to a LAC and majored in Chinese. She got into an Ivy med school. My hand orthopedic surgeon went to an Ivy and majored in history. My dermatologist majored in English at UGA. You can major in anything as long as you take the med school prerequisites too.
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Biomedicine isn’t really a major at US colleges.
If they intend for you to get into med school, your best bet is 1/premed pre-reqs (there’s nothing medical about the courses; they’re the same general chemistry course that chemistry majors take except you have to be in the top 10%, same class Bio majors take except you have to rank among the top 10%, etc.) + 2/ Medical Humanities or Global Health (+an African studies minor or foreign language if offered).
Biology itself is one of the majors with a lower ROI because there are so many majors for a limited number of jobs at the Bachelor’s level, such that you need to complement that major with sth else (and Bio is not the best way to get into med school - English, Philosophy, History.. majors have a better shot if they manage to handle both that major AND the premed pre-reqs with As).
Writing/communication about science is also pretty useful.
Denison is very good for writing and has merit aid.
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With the exception of me, this pretty much describes the rest of my immediate family. As others have said biology is not a particularly lucrative major. One daughter got her bachelor’s degree in biology and is currently working towards a PhD in a biomedical field. She loves it and is very good at it, but this is not something that you do with the hopes of making a high salary, because you won’t. Our other daughter is a veterinarian. Again she loves it, but again this is not the way to make a lot of money. Veterinary medicine is sort of like human medicine in that it is a very long path that requires 8 years of university and all that university education is expensive.
And because of these being fields that do not pay particularly well, avoiding debt for your education is very important.
Biology is something to do if you absolutely love it, and if you really want to do it, and if you can afford to get there. The competition is intense in multiple ways. Premed classes are tough and are full of very strong students. Maintaining a “medical school worthy” GPA is difficult, and requires a strong student and an enormous amount of hard work. Admissions to MD and DO programs is very difficult (DVM admissions is not much easier). Admissions to PhD programs is probably even more difficult (180 applicants for 3 positions in one case that I know of). Either way this is a long path full of tough classes with tough competition. A strong determination to do it may be just as important as academic excellence in terms of helping some students to ever get to the successful end of this path. I don’t think that anyone gets there without a strong will to do it.
For someone who is very strongly drawn to it, and who has parents who can help significantly with the cost of the education biology or medicine may be a great path. For most of us, something different might be a better choice.
There are a lot of very good students who start university thinking “premed”. Only a rather small percentage of them ever get to medical school.
Again maybe your guidance counselor might be able to say something to your parents about this.
Yes exactly. As one example, about 11 years ago I had robot-assisted surgery (which went well). I looked online and found a video of a surgeon who specializes in robot-assisted surgery using the robotic system to paint a very small and very good picture of the hospital where he works. He had gotten his bachelor’s degree in art while completing the premed requirements. Then he went to medical school. Then he did the residency and fellowship to become a surgeon. This is a long path, but for him started with a bachelor’s degree in art. I suppose that the manual dexterity and precision are common requirements.
One thing that occurred to me earlier in this thread: There are a lot of potential careers that you might not have thought of yet. International relations might be one example. Human resources, teaching, various kinds of therapy (whether physical or psychological or ??), law, physical things such as construction or plumbing, etc. I would not be the right person to know what is possible (my strength was pretty much just math and related fields), but there are lots of choices that involve neither math nor biology. There are options with chemistry and chemical engineering. One time on a flight into Pittsburgh I found myself sitting next to and chatting with an expert in ketchup. Who would have thought that someone could have a career being an expert in the chemistry of ketchup? It was a surprise to me, but apparently this does exist. I doubt that as a high school student ketchup was what he was thinking about for his career.
And the ability to write well can be a significant asset in quite a large number of careers.
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Majoring in STEM would drive me insane. And I appreciate the concern. My mother is clever and teeters on the edge of abusive but not quite so I can’t do anything about it. I only have a year and a half until I can leave anyways. If I dealt with years of this, I think one more would be livable.
I don’t think I’d even get into a school for bio or pre-med or anything of the sort because all my ECs except for one are journalism or writing of some sort. So AOs would know something’s not right
Are your parents in STEM or bio-related fields themselves?
Yeah, mom is a civil engineer-turned-nurse and dad does IT.
Will it affect my chances at getting a job at—say—a publishing company or some sort of PR or comms position?
I checked Denison a few weeks ago but it doesn’t give enough aid to make the cost reasonable 
also they don’t really care if I go into med school or not (I really don’t want to though since that’s the opposite of my interests + it’d rack up a lot of debt). My parents think that biomedicine is a major but I’ll enlighten them that it’s not. Science communication is something that I’ve considered, and maybe I’ll get more interested in the next year.
New England is a big region, and as you pointed out, it’s been a long time. You’re not immune from racism anywhere in this country, but parts of Maine (while it is still a very white state) actually have significant African immigrant populations these days. I don’t want to paint anywhere as a multicultural paradise, but Maine today is not (for example) Boston in the '60s.
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Untrue. Most wouldn’t care. They’d see you pursuing a passion and again at some yiu can’t select a major or you don’t have to.
But I, for example, would fail out as a STEM major. That’s a bigger issue if you’re not adaptable to it.
But this is premature.
Did you check out the technical writing link I put above. May be a compromise.
No. U know how many writers have no writing (English or journalism) major. Many. Maybe most.
Open a magazine you enjoy. Google the writers for bios. You’ll see.
You also need to play the long game. At my last company I interacted so much with PR that they wanted to bring me in. They didn’t know my education. They knew my abilities and not all PR is writing. There’s event management too.
Even if you start off doing other stuff, careers are long - and sometimes you achieve goals later - at a current or different organization.
The goal now is to get an affordable education. Hence the budget.
The rest is of little concern at this point.
Very interesting story! I’ll admit I don’t know what international relations is and thought it was international law. I did a little research just now; seems like it would be useful if I decided to do international journalism. And yes, I do agree that writing well is important across all careers.
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You seem open to major related to science communication. Other things that your parents might consider STEM-related that might be of greater interest to you include:
- Psychology
- Nutrition (human nutrition, dietetics, clinical nutrition, etc)
- Policy related studies (energy and environmental policy, environmental/natural resources management and policy, health policy analysis, public policy analysis)
- Public health
- Occupational or health safety
Having a non-English/comms major won’t hurt. Maybe you do the comms or PR for the club focused on science stuff, or you intern in the comms department of a STEM-focused company, or volunteer to provide feedback for a sci fi creative writing class, or… It really is going to depend on what experiences you get while in school and during your summers, what kind of topics you choose to research for class projects, etc.
Additionally, if you’re interested in journalism, the majors above can help you to increase your expertise in related areas and to create a niche for your writing.
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Yep, plus I looked into technical writing earlier this year and it didn’t 100% match my interests in writing creatively. But it does provide a great balance with being realistic.
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I’m actually planning on taking AP Psych next year bc it seems fascinating! If it continues to be interesting when I start doing college apps, I might just double major in that. Though my plan is to apply for comms or journalism majors and declare a double major (possibly psychology) after I commit to a school or when I start freshman year there.
In fact, @writerofwords, this would be a very good reason to apply to Bates College. Run the NPC though since if Denison is unlikely to be affordable so could Bates.
Have you taken or are you considering taking AP Environmental Science? Alongside AP Human Geography, it’s one of the few classes that helps you understand the world around you as it’s happening.
AP Psychology is a good, easy introduction to psychology (don’t tell your parents it’s an “easier” AP 
I mention it just to alleviate tour stress knowing it’s still an AP but wokldobe like advanced math or chem.)
Btw what is your current schedule and what would you be taking next year?
Note that at many schools you don’t major in journalism - you may be in English/writing concentration, Communication/Writing, etc.
Anyway don’t limit yourself to colleges with a “journalism” major.
Look into Northeastern (if this were to match your parents’ expectations prestige-wise, you could defend their “practical, co-op based” model - and ofc run the NPC). Boston is good for the publishing world (such as it is).
For a silly, unrealistic but often funny take on a publishing house, check out a few episodes of the show Younger. It’s not good overall imho but the episodes with more publishing industry jokes/events could interest you.
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FYI I know someone who has worked as a (very respected) health and science journalist for years. She double majored in physics and European studies, then did a specialist MS in science communication (in the UK). A quick google tells me similar masters degrees are on offer here in the US. So there may be a number of ways to get there if you decide this is the route you are interested in.
The parent’s income is $300k. Schools of that ilk have little chance of coming under $60k. At Bates much higher given no merit aid.
But until Op has a budget, school names are just that.
And OP has to understand applying with a major anywhere is a choice. It’s not required and at many not allowed.
But until the budget is resolved, there isn’t much to do.
Focus on your PSAT. See what happens.
But at some point you’ll have to educate your parents or have someone help you do so.
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