Switching From Science to Business, what to do?

Hi I've been a premed my entire undergrad career and I am now a senior. I know its very late but I've just begun doubting if I really want to go to medical school and be a doctor. I'm a biology major with a 3.45 GPA from a top 40 university nationally and was wondering if I had any chance of switching to business? If so how would I go about doing so. Will I be able to get analyst positions in any consulting firms without internship experience and my gpa?(I do have experience working in a research lab though). Should I apply to masters programs and if so which ones. I'm pretty confused so any help would be appreciated.

 
Best Response

This was my situation as well, was a healthcare admin major, stumbled upon a finance video on YouTube one day during my 2nd semester junior year and realized i was in the wrong major, but really couldn't justify doing the second half of college again from a monetary/time standpoint just to change my major. In my spare time i basically did all i could to learn basic finance, i did every section of the Khan Academy Finance Course, blew threw lectures on YouTube, anything that had to do with finance i made it a point to consume.

Like you, my internships at that point and upon graduation didn't have anything to do with finance. I got a full time job at the medical office i interned with my junior and senior year, to pay the bills, and convinced my manager to let me spend some time with the employee who handled the finances of the office, i was able to spin/combine that "finance" experience on top of networking like crazy to land an entry level credit gig, worked there for about a year and moved to a regional bank, and at the beginning of this year jumped to an Assoc. role at a BB in their Corp Banking Group (Healthcare Vertical)

It's really about spinning anything you can into potentially relevant experience and being able to explain that you got bit by the "finance" bug late in the game, but in spite of this went out on your own to try and level the playing field with the people who were finance majors and had real internships.

It's an uphill battle, but people with science backgrounds (specifically Bio/Chem/Physics/Math) can make pretty strong cases for themselves given that they're generally considered the most "intellectually" intensive majors. Id suggest finishing out with your Bio degree, try and get that GPA up to a 3.5 (not too far to go!) and network like a monster. Most MBA programs (the ones that are worth going to anyway) are going to need to see a 2-4 year work track record before you apply along with a good GMAT score, so you're still a few years out (search for an MBA thread and you'll see what i'm talking about).

 

the 3.45 is my projected GPA at graduation so I can't get it to 3.5 unfortunately. Does this impact me greatly? My school is known for grade deflation and its a public ivy. And from what I can gather I guess the plan moving forward is to simply network my ass off and hope to land an entry level position?

 

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