What LC Courses for Medicine

FionaF93

Hello,

I'm looking for some advice on what courses I should take for Leaving Cert if I want to do medicine. I'm very good in Maths and very good at memorising stuff. I feel pretty confident I can get A1's in Maths, Applied Maths, Biology, History, French, English, Irish and Physics. I've struggled a bit with Chemistry, I can do it, but I don't know if I can get an A in it, maybe only a low B at best. So the question is, which 6 subjects should I focus on the most for points? I've looked at the requirements and I was surprised that Chemistry doesn't seem to be a requirement. Others have told me I should have at least one other easier course like Ag Science or Music, since I'm a pretty good guitar player. Ideally I want to go to NUIG since I live in Galway and I may not be able to afford anywhere else. Any advice or comments would be appreciated.

Fiona

cork*girl

What year are you in?

FionaF93

Just finished the JC, but I've been teaching myself and taking a lot of self administered mock exams.

jumpguy

Chemistry is fairly crucial if you want to do the 5-year course in medicine. However, the 6-year course is grand and has less matriculation requirements, it's just an extra year.

A few questions, how are you judging that you'll get a low B at best in chemistry when you're barely a week into LC? Have you already done chemistry? Don't get discouraged from anything this early, I thought chemistry was impossible as well when I started, but keep paying attention and things will click. Chemistry is possibly the most helpful LC subject if you're doing medicine (and biology).

How are you confident you can get an A1 in all them subjects without even starting?! You really are jumping the gun altogether! Your ambition really is admirable but I think you need to take a step back. 9 subjects is also quite a hefty workload, they only count your top 6 for points.

As for subjects to focus on for points, well, another question that has no definite answer. There are no particularly easy subjects, you have to play to your strenghts. If you're good at maths, do HL maths. If you're good at music, do music and if you have a good farming backround then do ag. science.

cork*girl

Fairplay with starting the work already, but if you are only finished the JC, and are already in full LC swing then you will be burned out before you even start 6th year..

randylonghorn

If you want to maximise points (which I presume you do if you're aiming for medicine) my advice would be 7 subjects, 8 at the *very* most. Think about it ... that gives you more time to spend on each.

Maybe_Memories

You can't say you'll get an A in Maths and Applied Maths only doing them for a week.
Neither of them are anything like JC maths.

Both are based on understanding the material deeply.

Although with App Maths you could just learn the method for solving a problem, although that'll get you no where if they throw up a messy paper.

Try and get all the App Maths exam papers - I have the complete set back to 1970.

Chuchoter

First of all you haven't even gotten you're JC results, you have no clue how you did. Thought I was going to get 8 A's 3 B's and I got the opposite.

9 subjects is madness. 7 and maybe 8 tops, and even then only if your ignoring 1 or 2 (ie, my friend is taking 7 timetabled subjects, then applied maths and japanese, but is ignoring French and some other subjects because she has the others). This isn't like the JC, the level of detail each of the subjects go into is streets ahead of anything you did in JC. Music is only feasible if you have done it since 1st year, if so it seems like a nice subject. You have to have chem, whether or not you're using it for points/matric, it will be so hard without a vague understanding.

Are you someone who needs to understand things, or just learn things by rote?

If you were the former, I would say Chem, physics and music/applied maths. If you are the latter, I would do Chem , Biology and History. I wouldn't bother with ag science unless you are interested in that sort of thing, and make sure your combinations work out. I know theres some sort of thing where you can't put biology and ag science together or something.

theowen

randylonghorn wrote: »

If you want to maximise points (which I presume you do if you're aiming for medicine) my advice would be 7 subjects, 8 at the *very* most. Think about it ... that gives you more time to spend on each.

I think 7s a bit much. 6 did very well for me:rolleyes:

randylonghorn

theowen wrote: »

I think 7s a bit much. 6 did very well for me:rolleyes:

I did the same myself, and had no regrets.

Most people though prefer to have a spare just in case of catastrophe, or they may have a weak subject which they *must* take (it's often Irish) but don't want to count for points.

lctake2

i did 7 honours and i only did 7 because i was worried about chemistry but had to do it. doing 8 or more is pointless

rainbowtrout

crayolastereo wrote: »

If you were the former, I would say Chem, physics and music/applied maths. If you are the latter, I would do Chem , Biology and History. I wouldn't bother with ag science unless you are interested in that sort of thing, and make sure your combinations work out. I know theres some sort of thing where you can't put biology and ag science together or something.

You can take both biology and ag science for LC and count both for points since about 2005. Whether the colleges accept biology/ag science as the two sciences for requirements together is another thing.

FionaF93

Thanks for all the replies. I'm currently taking 7 classes, they are
Maths, Applied Maths, Biology, French, English, Irish and Physics.

I've never taken music, although a pretty good musician, I considered it since I heard it was easy, but now I'm not so sure, I've always been good with academics, so I'll stick with them. I also considered Ag Science because I was told it was easy, but I'm a city person and have no interest in it, so that's gone. I've always been great at History since I have a very good memory, in the past I'd read the full History book at the start of the year and I would retain almost everything. I wanted to do History, since I always loved it, but it conflicts with Biology and Physics, so I had to forget it.

Over the summer I read all of my new books and took old LC exams and got A's on all of them except Chemistry which I probably failed. I know Chemistry could be a lot different with a good teacher, although I never really learned much from teachers - no offense to teachers, since I was small I would read the books and teach myself, so I don't know if I can learn from a teacher.

I know taking Chemistry now would give me a good foundation for when I need it later on, but I'd have to drop something else or take 8 classes. I guess the question is if I get enough points, will I be able to get into Medicine if I take the 7 courses above and do not take Chemistry. Should I take Chemistry and drop one of the others?

randylonghorn

It is certainly possible to get into Medicine without taking chemistry, but having chemistry will give you more options.

Have a look at this, especially the table with the minimum entry requirements for the various colleges / courses on page 2.