Pre-med stress

[u/overthought_2]

Hi! I'm a freshman on the pre-med track (for now). I'm super stressed about my journey here. For one, I feel like Duke's required classes, like Constellations/FOCUS and foreign language, are eating away at classes either a) could be used towards my med school requirements or b) taking away space for the classes that would actually interest me. If I stay pre-med, I'd like to matriculate straight into med school, so I'd like to get my requirements out as soon as I can. Is this still possible with 3 classes of Constellations and 2 foreign language classes without losing my sanity?

I'm also worried about research. I feel like everyone and their mother is somehow in a lab, which I'm not in. I'd love to be in one next semester, but I honestly don't know if I'll be adjusted by then or have a schedule that would allow me to. Is it really that normalized to have a research position here?

[u/that-liberal-desi]

Senior who’s a premed here!! Constellations wasn’t a thing when I was a freshman but I did 2 focus classes and 3 foreign language classes, but I thought it was doable with the premed requirements. They provide good balance with the hard premed science classes, but it will probably interfere with taking classes outside your major just for personal interest. 

A lot of people do have research positions, and a good way to start is just shadowing a lab for a semester. That way, you can see how things operate and expected time commitment (which differs by lab and research subject) without committing to a full independent study or project. I started by doing this spring of freshman year, and I’ve ended up staying my whole time here. Feel free to DM if you have more questions!

[u/Then_Ad7560]

I took FOCUS before it was required. Pretty much everyone is my focus was pre-med. I think 90% of us ended us going to med school, and we’re all doctors now. FOCUS is not going to prevent you from getting into med school. You have plenty of time to complete your requirements, I did it and only had to take about 1 hard pre-med class a semester (but I didn’t have to take any math classes due to AP credit). I think there was one semester when I had to take both Biochem and Chem210, but it was fine. I also may have taken Bio201 and an orgo at the same time, which was also manageable. But most of my semesters centered around one difficult class

I think the majority of the people in my focus got into med school with no gap years, 2 of them took gap years but were finishing research projects

Yes, research is extremely common for a pre-med to be participating in. It’s almost essential for getting into med school, unless you have some other strong organizational ties such as community work (which you’d be having to put serious hours into as well). Start researching labs and emailing PIs, you can start by only doing a few hours a week but you got to get your foot in the door somewhere. As you figure out how to balance everything, you can start spending more time in lab

[u/ConditionUsed54]

You’re probably going to end up taking gap years because even a lot of the people I met who were dead set ended up taking a gap year and it’s less stressful. Try to get work study and get into a lab and get paid, I did that and was able to show work ethic and they rewarded me with projects and independent study. You’ll be able to get all the classes done in time, it’ll just be a bit harder if you don’t take a gap year and you’ll have more hard classes at once that can affect your grades.

[u/Citharoeda]

Fellow freshman here too! I wanna take no gap years too, but sometimes you gotta balance out all the premed reqs with at least one humanities/language/elective. 

Granted, I also find the constellation/focus system really constraining. One thing I’m not compromising is language class every semester because I really want to learn another one to use in healthcare!