Reviewing the Premed Courses (Part 3)

By: Nathan Kim ‘24

This is the third installment of a three-part series I’m doing to review the premed courses I’ve taken at USC. Closing off this series, it’s wild to think about how I was able to finish all of the premed prerequisites and how this adventure of classes was a difficult yet fulfilling one. A common denominator that I learned through taking all these classes is that the payoff of hard work does not go to waste in that it develops one’s academic as well as personal character, so I hope that you will gain that through taking these classes too. Feel free to check out my previous post where I review organic chemistry (CHEM 322AB), biochemistry (BISC 330), and statistics (PSYC 274)! In this post, I will be going over the physics series, sociology, and calculus/psychology.

PHYS 135A

• Like CHEM 322A, I took this class asynchronously over the summer after my freshman year and transferred in the credits to USC, meaning your experience may vary depending on your professor if you decide to take it at USC or elsewhere. Thus, I will be going over the content and my experience learning physics at a community college. I did take AP Physics 1 in high school, which helped me in having a basic understanding of physics but I hadn’t retained much of the information. This class covered foundational kinematics, forces, energy, and rotational equivalents. It required a different type of logic than the other science classes because the problems involve equation manipulation and application instead of memorization or calculations. It’s similar to organic chemistry in that it seems like a whole different language, so it’s necessary to do a bunch of practice problems to fully grasp the concepts. Even though I put in a decent amount of effort to do well, I’d say it’s one of the easier science classes regardless of the professor. 

Because the class was asynchronous, most of the learning was done by watching video lectures and doing online labs. This was also a 6-week class, shortened from 18 weeks, so I spent the majority of my summer studying for this class and constantly going over practice questions.

Rating: 7/10

PHYS 135B

• This was the last prerequisite class that I took during the second semester of my sophomore year, and thankfully, it wasn’t too difficult or confusing. Like organic chemistry, most of the material covered unfamiliar topics, and the content included electricity and magnetism, waves, and quantum mechanics. This was slightly easier than PHYS 135A, and the labs weren’t too difficult or time-consuming. The class does ask for a similar line of logic to PHYS 135A in terms of equation manipulations, so practice problems are still the best way to do well in this class in addition to going to SI sessions, which are tutoring sessions in which an assigned SI leader goes over a review worksheet for topics learned in lecture that week. The midterms and final don’t have many questions, but they are time intensive simply because a single problem requires multiple steps to solve. Even if you don’t take PHYS 135A and PHYS 135B consecutively or take them at different colleges, you can still do well in both classes because most of the topics are unrelated and can be learned on its own without relation to other topics.

Rating: 7/10

SOCI 200

• This is an optional class for medical school admissions. However, I took it because I had never taken sociology before, and it counted as one of my GE Cs. Two aspects of this class to consider are the mandatory attendance policy, which was somewhat difficult to fulfill because the class was quite early, and the no electronics policy, which means paper-and-pencil notes only. This class required a couple of essays and a multiple choice final and made for a relatively easy A as long as you put in the consistent effort. The TAs grade the essays, so that will play a significant role in the grade you receive. However, if you follow all instructions, an A is still attainable. The ideas I learned from this class were interesting and helpful for the MCAT. For studying, reviewing the notes once or twice a week should be sufficient because a majority of the lecture and discussions are drilling the big concepts that apply to different situations.

Rating: 6/10

MATH 125/PSYC 100

• Before I start, I want to mention that what I’m going to talk about here is simply what I heard from talking to other people that took these classes because I chose not to take them due to them not being hard requirements anymore. This means that although taking these classes could personally help one on the premed track, taking or not taking these classes will not have any bearing on one’s admission into medical school and is not necessary. I know that MATH 125 a.k.a. Calculus I is usually referred to as a necessary prerequisite, but after doing my own research into the requirements for medical school, I found out that few schools require it as a strict necessity and my AP scores would qualify for the schools that do require some type of calculus. Increasingly, statistics is becoming the main focus with more schools removing calculus as part of their prerequisites.

I didn’t take PSYC 100 because it was a soft requirement, which I fulfilled through taking AP Psychology in high school. Personally, I recommend only taking PSYC 100 if you haven’t taken any type of psychology or if you need it to fulfill a GE because it would definitely help for the MCAT, but I don’t recommend taking MATH 125 at all because it isn’t used for any future requirements. At our school, MATH 125 is infamous for having a difficult final, even though the concepts may be somewhat reasonable and the workload not too terrible, while PSYC 100 is a relatively easy class, depending on the professor.

You’ve reached the end of the premed courses! Remember to take all of my advice with a grain of salt, and do your own research online to make sure you create the best path for yourself. This is simply my own experiences and thoughts on the premed prerequisites.

Overall, I believe that the premed requirements are a necessary evil for medical schools to use as a measure for admitting students in which all you can do is your best. Being a premed is a long marathon where you have to put in a little effort each day, so you should do some soul searching to make sure that you are pursuing this field out of your own desire. Other resources that I highly recommend you to look into is Reddit and Student Doctor Network because, although highly neurotic, they contain numerous nuggets of helpful information that has guided me through this premed pathway.

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