Clinical medicine is more popular than computer science, but you can’t become a doctor if you apply for these majors! Don’t be misled by the names when applying for a major

In the hot summer, it is time to fill in the college entrance examination application form again. In the half month since the end of the college entrance examination, the search volume related to clinical medicine has always maintained the top position in popularity on major platforms, far exceeding computer-related majors. This is the first time that this has happened. Decades ago, it was rare for clinical medicine to be ranked in the top five in the college entrance examination popularity. It was not until the outbreak of the new crown epidemic that the popularity of clinical medicine in the college entrance examination remained in the fifth place. Yesterday, as the college entrance examination results of provinces and cities across the country were released, clinical medicine became a hot search again.

▲Clinical medicine search popularity ranked first

Data shows that due to the increase in the number of applicants, the admission scores for clinical medicine have been rising in recent years. It is obviously a welcome change that high-scoring candidates have chosen the medical major without hesitation. Many parents and candidates apply for medical majors in order to become doctors and engage in clinical work in the future. In fact, the classification of medical majors is very complicated, and not all medical majors are designed to train clinical doctors. Some majors have very similar names and "look very similar", but in fact their natures are very different, and these differences can sometimes directly affect employment directions.

For example, "Basic Medicine" is to train students to become high-level specialists in basic medicine who have great development potential and can engage in teaching, scientific research and medical experimental research combining basic and clinical medicine. Clinical medicine is to cultivate applied clinical medicine talents with solid basic medical theories, knowledge and skills, high comprehensive quality, strong practical ability and a certain scientific research foundation. Simply put, basic medicine trains scientific research talents, and clinical medicine trains clinical talents.

Another example is "Medical Imaging" and "Medical Imaging Technology". The former is a 5-year course of clinical medicine. After graduation, students can obtain a medical qualification certificate and become doctors. Such doctors can both "take pictures" and "read pictures", while the latter is a 4-year science degree, which belongs to auxiliary technicians and can only specialize in "taking pictures". Similarly, there are stomatology and stomatology technology, clinical laboratory diagnosis and medical laboratory technology... In other words, in the medical profession, the name with the word "technology" can be simply understood as being more theoretical rather than clinical.

In many other majors, there is a similar phenomenon of being easily misled by "names": What is the difference between Chinese language and literature and Chinese language? Are statistics and economic statistics the same discipline? Click to collect these pictures↓

Expert opinion: Only by understanding yourself and your career can you make better choices for your future

"If students lack interest in their majors and have poor self-discipline, they will easily fail at the university entrance exam," said Liu Gang (pseudonym), a professor at the School of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry of Harbin Institute of Technology. Since 2009, Harbin Institute of Technology has set up a special elite class (renamed Elite College in 2011) to cultivate top innovative talents. Its majors include national key disciplines such as aerospace, electromechanical, materials, and life sciences.

Liu Gang has been teaching on the front line for more than 20 years and has seen many talented students, especially undergraduates from the elite class, who have left a deep impression on him. "(Elite College) is more concerned about higher goals rather than employment rates. We aim to train leaders in this industry, so the schoolwork and study pressure is definitely very high," Liu Gang said. "Under such circumstances, some students who have good grades but lack internal motivation have a harder time. Every year, some students transfer because they can't stand it, but there are also students who may not have outstanding college entrance examination scores, but are particularly interested in a certain field, have good self-study grades, and transfer to (elite class) through their own efforts... This is the motivation of interest."

Xia Huanchun, assistant principal of Beijing No. 101 Middle School, also agreed with this. "Choosing a major in the college entrance examination is similar to doing scientific and technological innovation research to a certain extent. For middle school students, I personally think that they should first consider their own interests, rather than simply choosing a school and major based on scores, otherwise it is easy to form a psychological gap," he said. In his opinion, it is a very realistic issue to consider the employment situation of graduates when choosing a major in the college entrance examination, but there are many problems in predicting the future development and employment prospects of a major based on short-term market conditions.

"Employment situation is only one factor (when choosing a major), because it is hard to say how the employment form will develop in the future. The trend is always changing, and there are many possible career choices for children in the future," he said. "If there is no genuine interest as a driving force, it will be difficult to persevere when encountering difficulties."

"If you want to be a scientist, you must first love your major. If you don't like your major, you will not be able to go far in this industry. Therefore, respecting and protecting interests is the first step in cultivating scientists," Wu Baojun, executive vice secretary-general of the Science and Technology Association of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and deputy head of the undergraduate admissions group in Yunnan, told reporters that it is not uncommon for students to have excellent academic performance in high school but "have problems" when filling out college entrance examination applications. "If you don't have a favorite major and don't know much about each major, it is easy to apply blindly, and the consequences are serious: a considerable number of students with good high school grades become 'bad students' in college, and even drop out and retake the exam on the grounds of 'not liking the major'."