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*U-Wire member papers have full permission to reprint all or part of this column. Enjoy! This Week: • I'm a senior and have realized I'd rather be a premed than my current major. Is it too late to switch? • What can I do in the real world with a communications major? (questions may have been edited for length, grammar and/or to maintain the sender's privacy.) This is my 4th year in college and it's been a bumpy ride. I graduated from high school with honors, but once I entered college I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. I've decided that the major I've been in is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. Within the last two years I've managed to cut my GPA nearly in half, simply because I don't take school seriously. I'm trying to delay graduation because I don't want to graduate with this major. My question to you is, is it too late to pursue my dream of being a doctor because of my GPA? If I still have a chance, how do I go about it? It's not too late to pursue med school. Plenty of people decide to go to med school once they've already graduated from college, and they do just fine. Since it sounds like you're in your senior year already, I would recommend that you finish whatever courses you're taking already and get your degree. And I would start to look into some post-baccalaureate programs. If you've never heard of post-bacc programs before, they're offered by universities (Columbia and Temple have some reputable ones) to help people who've already graduated from college - or those who have been in the work force for a couple of years - take premed courses and apply to med school. Ask the premed advisor in your college for a list of programs; there may also be a listing on the AAMC Web site (www.aamc.org). Of course, a post-bacc program requires at least two more years of hard work, and they're expensive; getting financial aid could also be a problem. It still seems to me like they're the way to go in your case, especially since your college GPA isn't what you'd like it to be. You're going to have to explain your college performance on your med-school applications; it really shouldn't hurt you that much if you do well in the post-bacc classes and you manage to convince admissions committees that the reason you did so poorly in college was because you weren't really happy with what you were studying. If there were other reasons for your not doing well, make sure you explain those too. It's really important that you do well on your MCATs and actual premed courses, because given your college performance, they're all you're going to have to convince the admissions committees you can handle the med school workload. Whatever you do, don't lose hope. No admissions committe is going to hold it against you for not doing the typical premed thing in college. Anna Kaltsas, General Advisor What can I do with a communications major? I have been trying to find a website that will tell me about the different jobs under a communications major and I have been unable to find one. A communications major offers students the opportunity to develop strong interpersonal, research and computer skills. There are -so- many careers out there for people with such skills. What are some of the specific areas in the field that interest you? Below is a list of Web sites that can help you explore the different types of jobs that communications majors are generally interested in: http://www.uncwil.edu/stuaff/career/Majors/communication.htm http://careerservices.rutgers.edu http://stats.bls.gov/ocohome.htm Also, you should check out mediabistro.com for information on the latest happenings in the communications industry. The site also features an extensive listing of job offerings in the media (most of them located in New York). Good luck to
you! Mary Anne Feeney, Compsci Advisor While our VAVAs are good, we're not gods - please keep our disclaimer in mind when reading our advice.
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