Preparing for a Career in the Health Professions

Stevens provides advising services to students interested in pursuing a career in the health professions. To make yourself a desirable candidate for admission to such programs, you will need an education that includes a strong foundation in the sciences, highly developed communication skills, and a solid background in the social sciences and humanities.

Students who are considering a career in the health professions should begin exploring their options early in their career at Stevens. They should inquire about the requirements of specific health professional schools they are interested in and plan their studies at Stevens accordingly. Students should meet with their academic advisor and join the Stevens Health Professions Club.

Students considering prehealth should add the PreHealth Professions Advisory group to their Workday.  If you have questions about doing this please ask your advisor.  This allows advisors and the Health Professions Advisory Committee (HPAC) to formally identify and work with students as they plan for Health Careers and Graduate Programs especially within the following areas:

• Medical School (MD and DO)

• Dental School

• Physical Therapy School

• Veterinary School

• Optometry School

• Physician’s Assistant (P.A.) School

• Chiropractic School….

The Benefits of adding the PreHealth Advisory group to the workday profile:

• Able to track your courses taken towards the PreHealth path in Workday.

• Added to a supportive Canvas Shell (the HPAC course) with many resources.

• Additional Pre-Health advisory support from both faculty and staff especially in the HPAC committee.

• Ensure adequate seating into PreHealth Prerequisite courses as upper administration will have more accurate numbers of students in this program.

• Smoother registration for required PreHealth courses (such as psychology and sociology).

• Opt to receive announcements from Stevens Health Professions Club and Alpha Epsilon Delta (the PreHealth honor society) about all their student centered events.

Students are not required to choose a science major in order to apply to medical school, although majors such as Biology, Chemical Biology, or Biomedical Engineering include the courses that are typically required for application to medical school in their curricula. Thus, choosing one of those majors may make a student’s course planning a bit easier, but you can incorporate the required courses into many majors including, but not limited to, chemistry, chemical engineering, physics, humanities, arts, business, and other majors.

TIMELINE:

• Students who are planning to begin medical school or dental school immediately after graduation from Stevens should plan to complete all of the minimum required courses listed by the schools in which they are interested by the end of their junior year at Stevens to help ensure they are prepared to take the appropriate national exam (the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) for medical school or the Dental Admission Test (DAT) for dental school) by early spring of their junior year.

• The application process to Medical and Dental school is over a year long process. To enter medical school immediately after completing their Bachelor's degree students need to apply their junior year (i.e. year before they finish their degree).

• Many students choose to begin professional school immediately after graduation from undergraduate school.

• Gap Year Option: there is a strong national trend toward adding one or more years of experience between undergraduate school and professional school, a gap year, providing more flexibility in undergraduate course scheduling and choice of undergraduate major as well as the potential to study abroad.

Stevens faculty and academic advisors along with the Health Professions Advisory Committee will help you formulate the best plan for you. Please see Recommended Courses below to assist in discussions with your advisors to create your plan. In addition to excellent grades and excellent test scores, you will also benefit from experience in clinical settings (e.g., Emergency Medical Technician/First Aid training, hospital or medical/dental office volunteering), research laboratories where you can develop your power of inquiry and logic, leadership and service. Your academic and faculty advisors, as well as the Career Center and a variety of student clubs can help you make connections to find volunteering, clinical and research opportunities.

Recommended Courses

Typically, the following courses are recommended for students who are interested in applying to medical or dental school. The ones starred are normally the ones required for admissions requirements to accredited U.S. medical(M) and dental (D) schools. All the recommended courses will help the student prepare for the MCAT which has a significant emphasis on psychology, sociology, and biochemistry.

Please Note: Most U.S. medical and dental schools will NOT accept AP courses from high school, courses taken abroad, or courses taken at community colleges to satisfy the basic chemistry, biology, physics, math, and English courses.

It is strongly recommended that you check the admission requirements with the medical, dental or pre-health professional school you are interested in applying to.

For additional information about the pre-health professions program and to let the HPAC committee know you are interested in the health professions, please e-mail: StevensHPAC@stevens.edu.

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