On Being a Pre-Med at Berkeley

I am a first year student at Cal and an intended Integrative Biology major and of course- I'm premed. Here's a bit of background info:

I attended a somewhat competitive public high school in CA, graduating at the top of my class with around a 4.7-4.8 gpa (took 12 AP classes). Throughout high school, I followed the typical formula to get into a good college with med school in mind. So I volunteered, conducted research, did a lot of extracurriculars, and got good grades. However, my SAT/ACT scores fell a bit short with 2100/31 respectively. For those of you still in high school, remember that even though extra currics and gpa are very important for college admissions (especially for UCs), without a good SAT/ACT score, it's very difficult to get into a prestigious private school- such as Ivies (I got waitlisted at some Ivies and private schools). So, with the schools I got accepted into, I was torn between going to UCLA and UC Berkeley (since both schools offered great financial aid). As a premed bound student, I had the same dilemma that many premeds face when considering between UCLA and Cal. For a while, I was set on going to UCLA, mainly because they had a med school on campus, making it easier to get volunteering and clinical exposure. Also, Berkeley is notorious for extreme grade deflation, and that scared me -- a lot. On the other hand, Berkeley is seen as a more "prestigious" school by the general public (although some UCLA-ers might disagree : ) and med schools recognize the difficulty cal students face trying to attain a good gpa (or so they say : ). After writing and re-writing my pro/con list for both schools, I decided to visit UCLA (i've already visited berkeley). Needless to say, I didn't like it very much. Sure, it was beautiful, but Berkeley's culture and historic feel felt more "right" to me. So, it was decided. I was going to go to UC Berkeley.

When I started school in late August, I enrolled in Chem 1A (gen chem), Math 16A (first semester calc I believe?), Scandinavian lit (although changed to Anthro 2AC - don't believe people when they say scan. lit is supposed to be the easiest english class because it was in no way shape or form, easy), and Psych 2 (psych for non-majors). A lot of my friends wondered why I was taking such "easy" classes after taking it tough in high school. My answer: Because I'm pre-med.

A lot of people say not to go into a science major if you are looking to go into medical school since it helps you stand out from the rest of the applicants. However, premed prereqs are hard enough as it is. And you want to add more classes to an already difficult load? That didn't sit well with me. Juggling premed prereqs with a full schedule of classes for your major will be challenging.
I chose Integrative Biology because I always wanted to be a bio major that focused more on macro scale bio rather than micro scale, such as molecular cell biology, and I was fortunate to have my classes for my major overlap my premed prereqs. Problem solved? .. Not quite.

You see, I did well in high school. I didn't think AP classes were very difficult and I assumed that college classes would be similar to my AP classes.... Wrong.... Oh so very wrong...
I had my chemistry midterm a few weeks ago and I completely failed it. I knew the material going into the midterm and felt pretty good about it afterwards. So somewhere in between, disaster struck. For the next few days I went through phases of wanting to drop chem or drop out of school and become a hermit... slightly drastic right? But that's how I felt. I thought to myself "How can I do better on my other midterms if I knew everything on this midterm and still failed it?" So for the next few weeks, I've been getting help anywhere and any time I could, dropping in and out of office hours periodically.
Here's some advice to incoming students at Cal or any other college: DO NOT GIVE UP. A few bombed tests or even a not-so-stellar freshman gpa will not kill your chances at med school (believe me, I researched this for hours : ).

I think I've written enough for my first post. Here's a piece of irony for you.. I have to take my second chemistry midterm today in about 4 hours. Time for some last minute cramming : )
Wish me luck!

-K