Pros and Cons of Double Majoring

baktrax
Tue, 03 Sep 2013 00:44:28 +0000

I don’t really see the point of double majoring in biology and neuroscience. Both will likely have plenty of courses in biology, and majoring in just one or the other would be just as good (and you can always take additional biology courses as you see fit).

Also, you may want to see if it’s even possible at the schools you are looking at. At my school, you weren’t allowed to double major in two majors within the same department, and there were rules about the minimum number of courses that had to be unique to each major (which may not be possible with majors that have a lot of overlap, like biology and neuroscience).

You might be better off double majoring in biology/neuroscience and something else that you are interested, or just having one major and taking courses of interest in other departments.

I also think you’re future goals seem a bit far-fetched. It sounds like you want to be a surgeon, so an MD would suit you just fine. There’s no need to get a PhD as well (much less two PhDs, although you usually don’t get a PhD in just “biology”; they tend to be more specialized than that), unless you have a particular need for it. There are MD/PhD programs, if that’s something of interest to you. Also, a cardiothoracic surgeon wouldn’t help people with neural problems (and I find your description of “neural problems” strange as well).

It’s good to have big dreams, but it sounds like you need to do a lot more research into your goals if you plan on pursuing them seriously.