My College Pack

7 Comments on “Choosing a college… stress.. im wonderin bout neuroscience + football?”

1. 
   Dave87gn
   May 4th, 2010 at 5:17 am

   You can play football as a graduate student
   You have 5 years to play 4

   Football will open doors to colleges you might not get in otherwise

2. 
   eri
   May 4th, 2010 at 5:39 am

   Playing football is not a major. Even if you do play football in college, you also need to choose a major and complete all the required classes. You’d need a PhD to do medical research, not just a masters (although you’ll earn a masters while working on the PhD). Johns Hopkins is one of the best schools in the country for medical research – it is very, very hard to get into their graduate programs, and they recommend you don’t do your undergraduate and graduate work at the same university. Anywhere is fine for undergrad, since you won’t get many chances to do research (but you’ll need to do as much as you can to get into a top grad program – look into REU programs when you get to college).

3. 
   med student
   May 4th, 2010 at 5:46 am

   it doesnt matter where u play college football. the better the school the better for u. if u are good enough then you can get drafted into the NFL which would be amazing. as for good medical research programs. you usually have to get into a md/phd program which is mad hard. so if ur doing div I college football and still trying to get into a md/phd program, you probably wont have a chance to continue ur dream of being a research doctor. so its a decision you have to make. either you become an amazing football player and getin to the NFL or you put all ur effort into medicine. both are a full time job in undergrad and later on in life…

4. 
   dancing_smurf
   May 4th, 2010 at 5:57 am

   If you are pretty bad at football then getting into a Division 1 school football team maybe out of your reach and if you do make it then you might be warming the bench for the other players. Granted your dad may want to see you playing on national television but I do not know how realistic it is. So at least for right now I would not factor football in your equation and you might need to manage your dad’s expectations on this point.

   In regard to your question you must have a major and be enrolled to play on a college team. This means you cannot just play football without attending the school.

   My advice to you not worry so much about something years away. Right now I would focus on getting into a good school and get a good undergraduate degree in a field that would allow you to medical research like: biochemistry, genetics, chemical engineering, organic chemistry, or pharmacy to name a few. Second piece of advice would be is you can do you major and play football. However I would be realistic about your abilities and how far you can go with them. This may mean that the work involved in playing football for a Division I school may be more than any benefit you would derive from playing for them.

   I hope that I have been able to give you some useful piece of advice and wish you success in your medical research career.

5. 
   sylent_reality
   May 4th, 2010 at 6:38 am

   There are lots of good medical schools where you can get great medical research experience, so I’ll leave those up to you. As for football, there is a reason why the vast majority of D1 players major in some form of business. It is the easiest and everyone and their moms know that players spend way more than the NCAA allowed 20 hours of practice time per week working on their game. The players that work hard outside of and during practice are the ones that play on Saturdays unless you happen to be really talented. As someone who is looking to get into medicine, most of your time will be spent staring at the pages of a textbook instead of game film or your playbook. That said, this is not unseen in college football as guys like David Greene of UGA majored in Genetic Engineering and the Ting brothers at USC were also looking to get into med school (and gave up their senior year to focus on that). All of them were starters or major contributers to their teams. Don’t forget Myron Rolle, one of the top safeties in the country at FSU, is a Rhodes Scholar and wants to become a neurosurgeon.

   About college football, you have 5 years (5 undergrad or 4 undergrad and 1 grad) to play 4 years. You can play at Maryland and, if you haven’t used up your eligibility, transfer to Johns Hopkins for med school or whereever and play 1 more year. This however does not apply if you transfer to another D1A school claiming the reason for transfer is because your current school does not offer the graduate degree you want when in fact it does.

6. 
   monkey
   May 4th, 2010 at 6:43 am

   Ohio State’s QB a few years ago was interviewing for medical research positions as an undergrad so it is possible to do research as an undergrad. It is also possible to play football and be a science major. the best route for you might be to try to walk-on at a D1 school. Not saying it would happen.

7. 
   UsernameIsTaken
   May 4th, 2010 at 7:03 am

   As a neuroscience major, I’m going to be frank with this answer: I highly doubt you can successfully major in neuroscience, play football, and get into a good graduate program.

   The reason I say this is for two reasons and both are related to time commitments:

   1. Neuroscience is one of the most difficult majors you can do in undergrad. It requires a lot of studying and after your second year just about all of your classes each semester will be science courses. Since you’re in high school I suggest taking all of the following classes at the same time: AP calculus AB, AP Biology, AP Chemistry, and AP Psychology. That will give you a good idea of what each semester in college is going to be like if you major in neuroscience.

   2. To get into a PhD program (or MD/PhD like what you want to do) requires that you have an impressive research background in undergraduate. This means at least working in a lab, helping a professor do research. Ideally what it means is that you’ll have completed a research project of your own and have something to show for it (at the very least a poster, but a thesis or publication is what you’re really after). To give you an idea of the type of commitment this takes, I’m currently doing a research project of my own and I blow about an average of 50 hours per week in the lab working on my project.

   So as you can see, time is going to be a big problem for you. Not only that, but you seem to think you can do research with just a master’s. This is not the case. To do novel research of your own design, you need a PhD. This in turn requires you to either apply to PhD programs or MD/PhD programs, both of which are extremely competitive, and unfathomably competitive when it comes to the top schools (we’re talking acceptance rates of 1-3% here). That means you need to be damn near perfect to even have a chance of getting accepted. Don’t forget about having to cram for the MCAT and GRE (although you only need to worry about the GRE if you decide to go to grad school). Let’s not forget that if you try to go to med school you’ll also need to have a ton of volunteer work and extracurricular background as well.

   Oh yeah, and although you can technically play football in grad school, just go ahead and forget about that. Most science graduate programs will either flat out not allow you to play or will constantly give you hell about it until you quit.

   So to give a summary:
   - If you’re a genius and an extremely talented football player, you *might* be able to major in neuroscience, play football, and get accepted to a top research program afterward
   - Otherwise you’ll need to choose either football or neuroscience. If you want to play football, major in something easy like business. If you want to do neuroscience then you’ll have to end your sports career after high school.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.