I Finished a Pre-Med Undergraduate Degree and Now I Changed My Mind

If you have been a biology, chemistry or health sciences major with a pre-med focus in college and then changed your mind, you might feel a bit lost right now. Colleges report that between 45%-65% of entering pre-med freshman are no longer pre-med at the time of graduation.

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Students who change their minds about a future in medicine might do so at a number of different stages in the pre-med process.
Students may change their minds about a future in medicine:

• Before medical school applications are due
• After acceptance into medical school
• After rejection from medical school
• After starting medical school and realizing that it isn't a good fit

Since becoming a doctor is a highly sought after path, it can be tough to deal with the practical and emotional aspects of changing your mind about medicine.

I'm feeling lost
This stage in life is tough if you have already spent years studying science - and you suddenly feel unqualified to do anything. If you are also worried about disappointing your parents who expected you to become a doctor, you might have the added stress of needing to select another path with a 'wow' factor. Another nagging feeling is the feeling that you might always be labeled as 'not being able to get into medical school.' In fact, there are a number of physicians I have interviewed over the years who attended medical school just to prove that they were smart enough to tackle the challenging program.

However, it is important to realize that if your heart is not in it, you are unlikely to be content with continuing in a medical career day in and day out for the next 50 years. There are several good approaches for you at this point. Spending a little time re-evaluating your goals is vital at this stage and can help you decide which—if any—aspects of your undergraduate science education you want to use in your future before you start on your next steps.

There are some key questions you might want to ask yourself at this point:
*Do I want to work with sick people?
*Do I want to study health and disease?
*Do I want to develop patience with people when they are scared?
*Do I want to learn to comfort emotional and agitated people?

If you answered yes to the questions above, you might still enjoy and succeed at a health services career that is not an MD.

A few of the many health services careers you might consider include:

• Dentist - more specialized than an MD right from the beginning of graduate school
• Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine - similar to MD, but more focus on wellness
• Nurse - very hands-on with patients
• Chiropractor - focus on joint and spine health through hands-on procedures
• Podiatrist - more specialized than an MD right from the beginning of graduate school
• Physical therapist - focus on exercise and rehabilitation
• Physician assistant - can independently see patients and write prescriptions, some opportunities for specialization
  
• Dietitian - prescribes caloric and nutritional instructions
• Science PhD - research in the sciences
• Geneticist - works in research or with patients with a focus on genetic disease risks

If you decide to pursue one of these options, you need to take a little time to find out what the undergraduate course prerequisites are and which pre-admissions tests are required. This might mean that you need to take a few more courses and work on exam prep before applying.

Taking a non-health job path
If you answered no to all of the questions above, then a a health services career would not be right for you.

A student internship can be a great next step. Even an unpaid internship can help you decide whether your 'dream job' - journalist? financial analyst? business owner? designer? - is as great in real life as it sounds. And, as an added bonus, you will likely gain exposure to many types of jobs during an internship, and you might begin to consider career options that you have never thought about before.

Whether or not you end up formally using your science degree, having had a STEM major in your undergraduate years will be of benefit to you because of the rigor and the different skills that you need to use to succeed while studying science during college. You still have a world of opportunities ahead of you, and reassessing your plan after 4-6 years as a pre-med will not be as big a setback to you in the long run as it may feel right now!