Re: I am in 9th grade and want to become a pediatrian.

Medical school admissions are remarkably competitive in spirit, if not in reality. It can be stressful for the most earnest and hardest-working of us. I think musing on your major more than three years befor you start college is good evidence of that! I've lectured on preparing for medical school to high school and college students in the San Franciscso Bay Area for seven years. The following is my consistent message to them.

There is no required major to enter medical school. A common myth is the following: I should major in a human biology-related field in order to make myself a better candidate to medical school admissions offices (or to make the medical school coursework easier by "getting a head start").

Admissions committees do not preferntially seek out biology, biochemistry, genetics and psychology majors to fill their ranks. Each medical school wants a diverse student body and, in each year, a diverse class. To accomplish this, they select candidates that have a wide variety of majors, candidates of different ages (only a minority of my classmates entered directly after a baccalaureate degree; many had 3 or more years of time since graduating college), different national and ethnic backgrounds, and different goals for themselves in the field of medicine. You serve yourself and, arguably, your chances for admission best if you pursue the interests that bring out the best in you. The best advice I've heard is to major in what interests you so that you can honestly claim that you "followed your passions" and explored your own ideas. Doing so may also mean taking some time to do so between college and medical school. No medical school wants a class full of 21-year-old students with no more life experience than what happened during high school and college!

Furthermore, the prerequesite courses necessary to enter medical school provide plenty of a "head start" into the intense medical school basic science curriculum that forms the foundation of medical knowledge. Juggling the prerequesites with a humanities major in four years may leave little time for other classes. With ambition and a little creativity, it's not hard to make five or more years of school look much more interesting than 'cramming' all your major-required coursework and medical school prerequesite coursework into four years without room for another major, a minor, or postbaccalaureate, extracurricular, volunteer, family- or work-related experiences.

Like pursuit of any type of doctorate professional degree, the decision to pursue medicine as a career is a decision you must renew over and over during the long and often difficult path. Ask for help from your school's guidance counselors about local resources to help you decide where to start and how to tailor your goals to fit your ambitions as you grow.

Good luck!

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