Choosing a Major for the Health Professions

Health profession schools seek qualified applicants who are well-rounded, and whose undergraduate years reflect academic and extracurricular depth and diversity. Accordingly, pre-health students can carve out a personalized undergraduate experience in any of Northwestern’s six undergraduate schools with virtually any academic major. Schools do not give preference to any particular major, and the admission rate relative to a student’s major is quite even. You should therefore choose a major that interests and motivates you as you will be more likely to enjoy your classes, retain more information, and commit the time and effort necessary to do well academically.

When students identify themselves as pre-med/pre-health, they merely declare their plans to prepare for the study of medicine by fulfilling the requirements for admission to medical/professional school. The courses required for admission to a professional school will constitute only a portion of your undergraduate program. Students majoring in areas outside of the natural sciences may want to take some additional, selected course work in the sciences beyond the required pre-medical course work.

There are many paths to a profession in the health field. Your undergraduate education should be a time of personal and intellectual exploration, and not merely a joyless means to some distant and possibly unattainable end. Certainly, admission to professional school is a highly-selective process; however, this need not translate into prefacing all decisions about academic and extracurricular pursuits with “How will this entry on my resume look to an admissions committee?” To postpone the pursuit of your real interests to some other day is to cheat yourself out of much that Northwestern offers.

We strongly recommend that you attend a pre-health professions information session to learn how to choose courses and pursue other experiences that will best prepare you for a career in the health field. In addition, we welcome you to come to a “Choosing a Major” workshop, review the Advising Center’s website, or stop by our resource library for information on all the majors, concentrations and degree programs offered at Northwestern.

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