Love of Science is not there ?

[jasil]

Any undergrads or PA's perusing find science (most of it) boring? Or are most pre-PA's and PA's, "I love science, science is the best give me more science!" types?

My daughter who is a high achieving (still planning on being a PA) college student hates/doesn't like ANY science out of (college Bio twice, gen chem, gen physics, organic chem, AP 1, Micro, and biostatistics). She does not like science of any kind. She can do it, but does not like it only the math portions.

Graduated HS 3.92UW, with a AA degree, 34ACT. (36 Math)

She is now a soph in college and loves math, english, electives or as she says "anything except these science classes" her gpa is a 3.96 cGpa and 3.80 sGpa. I question if PA is the right path for her. She loves people, loves helping, has volunteered all through high school, got her CNA cert over high school college break, and has worked as a CNA 750hrs so far.

My dad question is if you "literally hate science" how can you practice it in medicine? Then again I'm not a medical practitioner, so  I know don't know how much actual real science is used versus memorization, repetition, trial and error for lack of a better word? Is the loathing of college sciences not that big of a deal and am I blowing this out of proportion?

Thanks a bunch 

[EMEDPA]

It is possible to hate hard science, but love(and be good at medicine). She might want to look at some other careers , such as psychology, which tend to be a bit less hard science -centric to see if those areas might be of more interest to her.

[nichole96]

I'm accepted to PA school and the only hard science that was even tolerable for me was A&P. It's totally plausible that she'll love the practice of medicine more than the study. It sounds like she's dedicated to patient care and will make an excellent provider! It also helps that she has the work ethic to succeed in classes she doesn't specifically enjoy.

I'd agree that she might want to look into other careers just in case she'd enjoy them more. She also may want to shadow PAs in different specialties and ask them how they use science every day.

[GetMeOuttaThisMess]

I’ll be the Debbie Downer and say that if you don’t enjoy the science then you’ll be hard pressed to be successful and last for the long haul. Things are always changing and you have to keep up. I’d rather have someone who likes the science and are people challenged than vice versa.

It sure isn’t the people interaction that keeps me stimulated.

[jasil]

5 minutes ago, GetMeOuttaThisMess said:

I’ll be the Debbie Downer and say that if you don’t enjoy the science then you’ll be hard pressed to be successful and last for the long haul. Things are always changing and you have to keep up. I’d rather have someone who likes the science and are people challenged than vice versa.

 

It sure isn’t the people interaction that keeps me stimulated.

I think she "could" excel anywhere "med school" maybe not as much, but she has always been a top 2-3% kid statistically. Even with her loathing of science she is right there with the "science loving" kids and usually ahead she just doesn't like it much. She took the GRE and scored a 331 with no prep in October don't know the writing.

We will see thanks for the feedback! 

Obviously, I was hoping for the response of, "I hated science, hated it all of it, got all A's and 1 B, but hated it. Loved PA school and Love being a PA!" 

[UGoLong]

Frankly, maybe she ought to go with her strengths. If she loves math and doesn't like science, maybe it's an indication she might want to consider something in information technology, especially if she is also a good communicator.

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[MT2PA]

18 hours ago, jasil said:

I think she "could" excel anywhere "med school" maybe not as much, but she has always been a top 2-3% kid statistically. Even with her loathing of science she is right there with the "science loving" kids and usually ahead she just doesn't like it much. She took the GRE and scored a 331 with no prep in October don't know the writing.

We will see thanks for the feedback! 

Obviously, I was hoping for the response of, "I hated science, hated it all of it, got all A's and 1 B, but hated it. Loved PA school and Love being a PA!" 

Let's flip this around.  Most (or a lot) of students who go to PA schools were good at EVERYTHING in undergrad.  Same can be said for med students.  That's how you end up with 4.0 GPAs.  Just because I excelled at math doesn't mean I would enjoy a job as an accountant.  I would not enjoy being a journalist or writer despite my top grades.  But I like science.  I will go out of my way to read up on something.  I will spend my free time reading journal articles about new medical treatments or trials.

I'm curious as to how or why your daughter even came up with the idea of going to PA school if she doesn't like science?  I would highly recommend she try and shadow some PAs/MDs etc to see what practicing medicine is actually like.  Maybe she would like doing it.  But I worry that she could end up putting a lot of time and energy into PA school, where yes, she would probably excel, but hate it or find herself 5 years into being a PA and realizing it was all a mistake.  

As a sophomore she has a lot of time left.  Encourage her to branch out, join clubs, take more math/english/electives and see if she finds a passion somewhere.  Challenge her to articulate WHY PA school...because if she applies it's something she'll have to explain.  Good grades alone wont't sell an admission committee.

[Bat10]

You really have to have an interest in why and how the human body works and responds and adapts. If it doesn’t excite, medicine might not be the right path. You don’t have to be 100% interested in the nitty-gritty details in your pre-req courses (like the Robinson-Annulation mechanism in organic chem or something else that narrow) but you need to enjoy the rudimentary part of science or the courses you take in PA school will be boring. 

[SRUPAprogramisgarbage]

I think it is one thing to not like studying, it is another thing entirely to not like science. As a PA applicant that has earned his MS in biomedical sciences, I can attest to the fact that studying for science courses, especially upper level courses, is not fun at all. You are expected to be able to recount a ton of information and recite the information vividly in grueling short answer/essay based test questions. The road to just getting your BS in science is a hard one, and anyone that says that they didn't have to study that hard or that it is easy to earn your BS in a hard science major are either naturally smart or just plain lying. I worked my butt off in undergrad to get good (not great) GPA while balancing several extracurricular activities (volunteering, student leadership, honors society meetings and an on campus job) just to appear to be a good applicant for PA school.

This all being said, studying takes up a lot of time and can be frustrating. In the field of science especially, there are chains of reactions that have a certain reagent that can be difficult to memorize or there will be a concept where the concentration gradient doesn't make any sense to you or where it seems like electronegativity is being defied. The topics in biological-focused degrees are just hard and are packed with information. However, all of it should at least sound interesting to your daughter. While I was in school for my BS, I hated a lot of science courses. I felt like that it was just large volumes of useless information that would not carry over/help me practice medicine. Having to sit down for 4-6 hours everyday outside of class while maintaining a social life, participating in my extracurricular activities and going to class to comb through 100-300 pages worth of information was exhausting. No wonder she doesn't like science! Studying it is hard and takes a lot of dedication!

However, throughout school, there were always these little nuggets of information that would keep me intrigued and inspired me to keep going. A professor would lecture on a concept within a particular topic that would just sound cool and I would think to myself, "Man, all of these little reactions, little interactions between receptors and substrates, electron orbitals and molecules are all happening in my body right now just to keep me going and do something as simple as think right now. This is dope". If the human body is fascinating to your daughter and she is committed to living an empathetic life in service to others, I believe that she is in the right major and that she should become a PA. The road to becoming a PA is hard, but it is worth it if your passion is caring for others and are passionate about improving the health of others around you while enriching their lives. If she loves the idea of patient education, having a great sense of accomplishment everyday at work, demonstrating compassion to others and directly helping to improve patient health and lifestyles, then she will love being a PA:)

[karebear12892]

I don't enjoy science unless it is in the context of clinical medicine. My bachelor's degree is in business administration/healthcare management. I was a physiology major for about five minutes and realized immediately it was not for me. I took the bare minimum science prerequisites necessary to get into PA school. Luckily, I'm good at memorization, so flashcards and mnemonics (barely) got me through undergrad bio/chem/A&P. I did not enjoy any of these courses, but I knew I had to get through them. If it weren't for working in the ER while I was a student, I would have never been able to see the forest through the trees. 

I was the only non-science major in my PA class and I ended up with all A's - so yes, it can be done successfully. For me, learning science as an undergrad was monotonous and boring. But when I got to PA school, learning about science in the context of things that we see all the time (acid-base disturbances, drug interactions, and basically any anatomy as part of learning to perform a procedure) made a thousand times more sense. These concepts became far easier to commit to memory and I finally feel like I really understand some of the fundamentals of science that were so difficult for me to grasp as a college student.

I still don't like science - admittedly, when I read journal articles, I tend to skip over the "understanding pathophysiology" sections and go straight to "how do I diagnose this, how do I treat this, what risk factors do I need to be aware of, what pitfalls do I need to avoid," etc. I go out of my way to read up on clinical presentations but when it comes to what's happening on a molecular level, I stick to the basics. I'm sure someone on this forum will criticize me for this post but as far as I'm concerned, my inability to recall Krebs cycle doesn't make me a bad PA and doesn't change my patients' outcomes. 

Bottom line: Loathing college sciences is not a big deal and she can still become a PA if that's truly what she wants. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk more. 

[JD2012]

Overall I enjoy the sciences, but there are some classes I just really really hate as a PA student, for example pharmacology.  It makes me wonder why anyone would want to be a pharmacist, no idea why!!!! SERIOUSLY! WHY? 

At the end of the day though, I look at the whole picture;  at how much I have learned. It feels very rewarding especially when I compare what I know now to how little I knew before PA school, what a HUGE difference. As well as being able to comprehend the information and putting it all together.

[GetMeOuttaThisMess]

37 minutes ago, JD2012 said:

Overall I enjoy the sciences, but there are some classes I just really really hate as a PA student, for example pharmacology.  It makes me wonder why anyone would want to be a pharmacist, no idea why!!!! SERIOUSLY! WHY?