What can I do in highschool now to prepare for my future goal of becoming a doctor?

In addition to the ideas above, you should focus on being very successful in your high school classes. If you can at your high school, you should try to take two AP science classes, AP calculus, and perhaps AP statistics. If you can get a 4 or 5 on the AP exam, most colleges will let you skip into more advanced classes when you are a freshman.

To be a doctor, you will need to take a set of classes in college called "pre-med". There are about 10 classes, including math, biology, and chemistry. If you are an English or history major, these classes will be in addition to the ones that you take for your major; if you are a biology major, these classes will mostly also count for your major. It will be easier to fulfill all these requirements if you come in with some AP credits.

Becoming a physician is a product of long term commitment to educational excellence. As such, succeeding in the field requires you to commit early on to those things that bring about good grades in school. Conditioning yourself early on to develop good study habits and routines is essential. Examples of this include regular nightly study hours, organization and creating an environment that allows you to focus on the material at hand. Additionally, do not discount the value of surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals in high school. This doesn't necessarily mean that you need to spend your nights with future physicians, but interaction between those who are passionate and hard working will help you develop higher expectations for yourself and those around you. There's an element of sacrifice involved in the road to becoming a doctor; focus on the end goal and it will help you work through subject areas that you aren't particularly passionate about.

Best of luck!

Your ability to prepare through coursework alone is going to be limited. It's obviously critical to achieve mastery of written communications and statistics, as evidenced by very strong grades, but that goes without saying. A couple of other tangible suggestions could include:

• Never, never, never let a summer go to waste. Find some way to spend your summers in the healthcare field. This could be as formal as an internship, or as informal as volunteering at a hospital. Your goals here should be to learn first-hand about the variety of career paths in the healthcare field, to test / confirm your genuine interest in the field, and to acquire tangible real-world experiences upon which to draw for your college admissions applications and scholarship applications.


• Find a mentor. If you can find a doctor who will agree to be your mentor, you could find the guidance helpful. Try asking your family physician if you don't have other doctors in your network.

Commit yourself to learning. Develop the passion to work hard in school. Take difficult classes. Challenge yourself and your teachers. Ask questions. Understand why.