PREHEALTH ADVISING FOR TRANSFER STUDENTS
updated: 6 March 2008
Your first year at Stony Brook can be a foundation for success that will benefit you for the rest of your life. That same year could also be the root of academic and extra-curricular troubles which can grow quickly, spin out of control, and block the path to your future. Pragmatic planning and sustained, productive, intelligent work are key elements which can give you confidence that you are on the right road.
If you focus on completing several basic tasks, you can help to ensure that your semesters at Stony Brook will be productive and profitable. Let's talk about these things now:
- TAKE PLACEMENT TESTS SERIOUSLY.The easiest way to do this is to take them! These tests are designed to tell you which courses are right for you to take. The feedback you get from placement tests can make the difference between a successful semester of well-chosen, challenging courses that make you strong and an academic catastrophe. Speak to your orientation leaders about which placement tests you should take, and remember that you should always err on the side of caution and take the test if you are uncertain.
- HAVE YOUR COURSEWORK FROM YOUR FIRST SCHOOL EVALUATED. The Transfer Office (632-7028) will evaluate courses for your D.E.C. requirements. If you have taken any prehealth prerequisite courses, make sure to have them evaluated by the appropriate departments (Biology courses at the Biology department, for example) to find out what the Stony Brook equivalent is. This can help you to plan out what your next prehealth courses will be. If you have already taken courses that you want to count towards your major at Stony Brook, make sure to check with your major department for approval. Much of this evaluation can be completed at orientation, but you might have to finish up some of this business during the course of the semester.
- THINK ABOUT YOUR MAJOR AND CHOOSE WISELY. The best way to pick a major is to find something that interests you--something which will challenge you, stimulate your mind, and also be something at which you can excel. Some transfers get caught in the trap of picking a major just because they think they can finish it quickly-- often, following this strategy can weaken your chances for entering the career of your dreams. When you think of your plans for the rest of your college career four words should be uppermost in your mind: "high quality, attainable goals." Remember that in almost all cases, you can be a prehealth student and major in any department at the College of Arts and Sciences.
- PLAN YOUR SCHEDULE CAREFULLY. Build on the strong foundation you already have. Don't rush ahead if you have not completed the necessary prerequisites. Keep your other responsibilities in mind--family, job, or even a commute.
- BUILD UP YOUR ACADEMIC SKILLS. You need to do more than study to pass the next exam. You need to learn "for keeps." At some point you might need to take a professional exam that will draw on reasoning skills that take years to develop. You need to refine your study skills so that you will be able to learn more complex, more difficult material in the same time that it now takes you to learn "easy stuff." Improving your study habits is a very difficult task indeed. You need to write, condense, and index your notes; connect concepts, and distill crucial insights from what seem to be dry facts and numbers.
- GAIN HEALTH PROFESSIONS KNOWLEDGE. The chances are good that you have some health professions knowledge. After all, if you are taking prehealth courses, you are doing it for a purpose, to fulfill the requirements for one or more health career areas. We have updated prerequisite information at Prehealth Advising (Melville Library, room E 2360), so you might want to stop by to pick up the information that relates to your goals. Reading newspapers, speaking with health care professionals, and the internet are good resources for expanding your knowledge base. You want to be sure that the career you select is right for you, and good information is crucial to being sure of your choice.
- GAIN HEALTH PROFESSIONS EXPERIENCE. When you are competing for a seat at a rigorous school of the health professions, you need more than good grades and "book knowledge" about the career that interests you. You need some first hand experience of what the field of health care is like. Program requirements vary. Stony Brook's PA program, for example, wants students to have at least two thousand hours of health related experience--that is a lot of time, the equivalent of a year of full-time work. Medical schools do not specify a specific number of hours of experience that they want, so it can be good to think in terms of getting a track record of experience that stretches over semesters and years. Unless the program you desire has an up front and immediate number of required hours (like Stony Brook's PA program) you might be able to put the acquisition of health-related experience "on the back burner" this semester while you focus on your academics. So, check your prerequisite information!
CRUCIAL RESOURCES YOU CAN USE TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR EDUCATION
- PROFESSORS: Your professors do more than lecture and carry out research. They have office hours, time that they set aside specifically for you, their students. If you study and learn well, you are going to develop good questions about what your professors teach in class. These questions could be about basic conceptual and theoretical issues. These questions could be about how to get resources for further study. You want to talk about these things with your professors during office hours. Eventually, you will get to know some of your professors well enough to ask them to write letters of recommendation for you. If you are interested in medicine, dentistry, optometry, podiatry, or veterinary medicine, we have recommendation forms here at the Prehealth Office (Melville Library, E2360) that you can use. If you are interested in another health profession, you should open up a recommendation file at Career Placement (Melville Library, W0550).
- PREHEALTH ADVISING:We are located at Melville Library, room E2360.
Our phone number is 632-7082 and our e-mail address is prehealth@notes.cc.sunysb.edu.
If it relates to the health professions, we have information about it:
selecting health careers, employment projections, which prerequisite
courses to take and when to take them, health-related clubs on campus,
professional exams, volunteer work, summer programs. During the fall
and spring, we publish a weekly newsletter, which you can pick up at
our office at the start of each week. So, stop by and take a look through
our information, talk with us during our walk-in advising hours or send
us an e-mail. Visit our web site at www.sunysb.edu/healthed.
- NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE: The National Library of Medicine is the world's largest library of information that pertains to health, health care, disease, and medical research. Their website is an excellent resource that you can use to educate yourself about the health professions. The site address is www.nlm.nih.gov. and for MEDLINE alone, you want to memorize this address. When you run a MEDLINE search, be creative! You will find that topics such as literature, history, personal biography, ethical issues, human sexuality, and psychology can all be accessed in addition to the "hard sciences" and that all of these topics can relate to the health professions.
- ACADEMIC ADVISING: Melville
Library, E2360. This is the place to go if you have questions about degree
requirements, classes to take, academic policies--in a word anything
about the whole world of issues that relate to your smooth progress towards
your bachelor's degree and what to do if things go wrong.
- STONY BROOK'S WEBSITES: Stony Brook has a wide range of opportunities, resources, and venues in which you can develop your strengths on the humanistic, scientific, and interpersonal fronts. You need to take the first step, though; target the resources that are going to do you the most good, and access them. Two addresses, www.sunysb.edu and www.sinc.sunysb.edu are your gateway to finding out about all that the campus has to offer you.