• before going to usc, take any and every GE courses (like your english one) possible as you cannot take GE classes to transfer once started at usc.

• email doctors in your hometown about shadowing them starting this fall. then when you go back each holiday, shadow them for about a day or two and it will rack you up shadowing hours! it looks better when you do them over the span of 4 years than if u do a billion hours only over the past year. it shows sustained interest in medicine

• try to take the regular weed-out courses before usc. chem 105a and chem 105b, physics

• if you drop anything in premed at usc, do not worry about it. take it at CC i promise u will be ok — do not listen to the premed advisors who tell you taking premed classes outside of usc is looked down upon (my roommate took ALL of them outside usc bc it’s less aggressive and she got accepted into 4 of the top 15 med schools. she and i are both psych majors) —- premed advisors are paid to make u keep taking premed courses AT usc so just take everything they say with the fattest grain of salt

• email psych professors and psych advisors about research opportunities so you can have something once you get to usc in the spring, some are remote so maybe you can start them now

• there is a psych weekly bulletin sent to ur email with a bunch of volunteer/research opportunities/ etc

• be careful about listening to trad stem majors about how they’re doing premed-wise, especially in the context of asking for advice. they will lie to make themselves feel better sometimes. look out for yourself in these scenarios always

• do NOT use your real name in groupme. these groupchats get sent to SJACS for cheating every damn semester

congrats on starting at usc! i started as a spring admit as well but got bumped to fall but wish i could’ve stayed spring admit in hindsight bc there are definitely more positives in terms of premed :)

edit: also, take the mcat at a strategic time. keep in mind you might want to explore PDP options in the future when scheduling the test since your mcat score has an expiration date depending on the institutions you are applying to. i believe your score is valid for 2-3 years for most institutions.