By Ryan Otteson | Reporter
For many students it is difficult to know what they want to pursue as a career, especially freshman year. While navigating this, students might pick a major that does not suit them best, and for certain programs, this can become common.
According to the National Library of Medicine, only 16.5% of students who intend to major in pre-medicine graduate with the courses required in order to attend medical school. Most students that go to medical school major in biological science, as it is one that extensively overlaps with working in the healthcare field.
Longview junior Izzy Hough was one of those freshmen who started out with the goal of being on the pre-medicine track.
“Both of my parents are pediatricians, and I always have felt like I’ve had a calling to work with kids,” Hough said. “So that was kind of my default, was pre-med, because my parents worked with kids, and I thought I would follow suit. But I quickly realized that I didn’t love the full heavy science aspect of it.”
While still a freshman, Hough switched to studying communication sciences and disorders, and now her long term goal is to become a speech pathologist, although she is unsure which specific field she will pursue within that.
Hough went on and said that she thinks it is very common for pre-medicine students to switch their major because the class requirements are often different than people expect. She believes that it takes a certain drive and passion to pursue medicine instead of just doing it for the financial success or title of being a doctor.
“I think it’s so worth it if you are really passionate about that like both my parents are,” she said.
Dallas junior Riley Waddell had a similar experience, as she also started out on the pre-med track and switched to business on the pre-law track. Five out of her six roommates were pre-med originally and changed to something different. Waddell is now pursuing a career in politics, and agrees that a student has to be passionate about medicine if it is something they want to pursue since it takes a lot of hard work.
“If you were to tell me four years ago sitting in high school that I would be here studying pre-law on the political track I would’ve been like, ‘That’s really funny, that’s not me, that’s not Riley Waddell,’ but that’s why I changed my major,” Waddell said.
