grad school with a completely different degree

[tom1607307597]

I had a quick question about applying to graduate school. If let's say your a fine arts major can you apply to pharmacy school or something similarly unrelated to whatever you originally studied? Originally I was majoring in an engineering program but now I'm thinking of getting in general biology. Would they let me into a graduate degree program for biomedical engineering assuming I had the other requirements to get in?

[Crazyaboutdogs]

It depends on the program. Sometimes there are course pre-requisites. Perhaps you can call the Department where you want to apply and ask them what their requirements are.

[BellaDonna]

The individual program will specify if you have to have a related degree in order to be eligible to apply.

 

There are graduate degrees out there specifically designed for mid-career changers or others with a totally different undergraduate foundation that sometime build the core prerequisites right into their programs. They may take longer to complete though, since there are added courses.

 

But it does not sound like your undergraduate studies are in a completely unrelated field anyway.

 

This example program link removed wants their applicants to have:

 

Admission to the Department of Biomedical Engineering is granted to students who have a superior record of achievement in their previous studies and show a strong potential to succeed at an advanced level. Applicants normally hold a B.S. in an engineering discipline, physics, or the life sciences (chemistry, biology, etc.).

[laboheme]

If you satisfy all the prerequisites (which you should be able to find out on the programs' websites or by contacting them), I don't see why there would be a problem, especially in your case, where the two fields are not 100% unrelated.

 

I would really focus on your personal statement (which I'm sure is required) and provide strong justification for wanting to go into a different field.

 

Also, I can't really speak for grad programs in the sciences, but I know a lot of people who successfully got into med school with history and English degrees -- and that's quite a switch! (Of course, they had taken all the prerequisite courses: biology, o-chem, etc.)

[IntotheWild]

Biomedical graduate programs always have a wide variety of undergraduate majors attending. There are far more graduate programs in biomedical than there are undergraduate...that should tell you something.