If you have any sort of serious major or goals in mind 90% of the students at UVM will make you want to go postal. You will sacrifice time, relationships and hobbies (skiing) if you seriously want to be a doctor. The hippies are good for the curve in your classes if you study during your intro courses because most people fail out of the hard majors by the end of sophomore year.
There is no premed program here. If you want to be premed (Like every other freshman who wants to make money and doesnt know what theyre getting into) you're going to be a biology major. This is considered the third hardest major in the college of arts and sciences (behind chemistry and physics) This takes care of all of your requirements. You can be either a BA or a BS, BS takes more science courses, BA you can take a foreign language. Freshman and sophomore year your class sizes are huge and you HAVE to go to your profs office hours or you will be invisible.
The large class sizes make this a huge weed out time for everybody. If you Truly want to become a doctor or get into a profession that requires you to go to med school be prepared to live a different kind of college life than what you see in the movies and what 90% of the people you meet are doing. You're not going to be able to party much, hell by sophomore year to get my GPA up (held a 3.67 all last year) I had 0 party time, no spring break etc etc. People who party every weekend, do bad on the tests and talk about it in class (most of uvm) will seem like losers to you, and you will probably split your social groups into two completely separate circles, "partiers and studiers"
It's almost mandatory that you take a summer session of both required physics courses or else you will be taking 3 lab classes at a time for a whole year, and yeah that will make you kill yourself or your GPA if you try it. Summer sessions for physics go from May23-August 8th for both semesters.
you're going to have to sacrifice another summer and/or winter break to dedicate studying for the MCATS. If you choose winter break you're going to be covering 4-6 chapters out of each of the tested subjects per week for a month before you take the test assuming you don't study for them during your semester beforehand. Thats 1 chapter out of each book 4 to 6 days per week ( 5 chapters total per day)-- fulltime job basically.
You will have to get a committee letter as well as 3 recommendation letters from professors, research experience/shadowing and medical experience (community service).
Assuming you do well on the MCATS and they like your credentials and recommendation letters, you will go into the interview. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF APPLYING TO MED SCHOOL. I'm not there yet but I have talked to students and the most important thing is to have NO ego. People with 4.0's and great MCAT scores have been denied from every school they applied to because their hearts werent in it or they had an ego. The committee knows that egos get patients killed in hospitals, so your most important tool is being humble during the interview, speaking from the heart and writing thank you letters after the interview.
Why should you listen to me?
I'm going into my junior year at UVM, am taking physics (both semesters) right now and the mcats in the winter. I have to get a committee letter from UVM and meet with the premed advisor again before the semester starts. I am an officer in the Tribeta Biological honor society Epsilon Tau chapter (good to get into for community service) and have already shadowed in a biochemical research lab studying the dental pathogen actinomycetemcomitans. I also work in a pharmacy on the weekends and deal with many patients fresh out of the hospital and some doctors writing prescriptions.
I know that I want to be a Doctor. I have seen family members and friends helpless in the hospital after major surgeries and I have been around incompetent doctors. A great class to take if you're thinking about getting into the medical field is Microbiology and Pathogenesis (MMG065 or MMG10??) the 100 level is similar but more difficult, both involve a good deal of memorization.
