[...] recently received an e-mail from our friend Tyler. As you may recall, he found peace last year by swapping a premed major that never interested him [...]

[...] friend Tyler, whose quest for student simplicity I profiled last April, recently sent me a message. He was nervous about a course he was taking for his linguistics minor. [...]

If you’re interested, you should shoot me an e-mail with some more specifics. I’m thinking of starting a regular series — Zen Moments — where I share stories of students who had specific experiences or major changes involved a more engaged, balanced lifestyle.

Typically, the school has a “normal” course load you can find out pretty easily. i.e., most students take x courses per semester. Use this as a guide for your initial semester then you’ll develop a better sense of what’s reasonable and what’s not.

Now here is a question you may think about answering. “How does a student know if they have room to add a new task, and how would a student go about integrating a new task into their schedule?”

That’s a hard question because the answer is so subjective. In general, I like to make a distinction between activities that don’t require your time or only require a finite amount of time (a week or two), versus those that will require your time and attention on a regular basis. It’s the latter that I’m wary about. Being free with former helps keep student life exciting and varied.

Another wrinkle is strongly related activities. For example, if your thing is writing, then it might make a lot of sense to pile on a few different writing responsibilities (column for the paper, editing a magazine, etc.); it all melts together into one large focused activity.

Maybe there’s a whole post brewing in here…

That’s a great motto. Thanks for bringing that to my attention…

@Daisy:

I’m glad to provide the confidence boost. As someone who balanced being the editor of the campus humor magazine and a computer science geek (and whom now balances freelance writing/blogging with being an MIT grad geek) I can personally attest that the unusual combinations are not only okay, but, often, the most interesting. They also yield cool opportunities.

I don’t know much about pre-dent. I think pre-law is a scam. As for pre-med, my understanding is that it’s pretty flexible. You need to take the recommended courses, regardless, because otherwise you’ll drown at med school, but it doesn’t affect admissions to be a History major.

Udoka is right to point out that it can be a pain to take those chem courses on top of another major. My recommendation: if you like bio or chem, and definitely if you’re interested in being a research MD, then major in one of those sciences. Otherwise, don’t force a major that will make you miserable: just plan your pre-med courses way in advance so you can control when they fall into your schedule.

Any pre-meds on this thread want to add something from your experience?