Program Requirements

Pathways skinny header with health icons

Pathways student working in a lab with faculty member — Pathways students learning about Medical Laboratory Science in AHS 1104

As a Pathways student, you will participate in exclusive activities throughout your undergraduate career, including hands-on experiences in simulation labs, coaching from health professional school students, visits to health care settings, and more.

These opportunities will help you build the knowledge, skills, and qualities (sometimes referred to as competencies) and meet the requirements necessary to be competitive for application to a health professional program.

Your experiences in the Pathways program will be personalized based on a number of considerations - your career goals, your strengths and motivations, and your support needs.

Year One Activities

Emerge: Summer STEM Program

As previously mentioned, students that are accepted into the Pathways program are required to participate in the Emerge: Summer STEM Program run by the President's Emerging Scholars program during the summer before freshman year begins. During Emerge, Pathways students will have unique health care related experiences carved our throughout the summer's activities.

Once the academic year begins, Pathways students will participate in the following required activities:

Meet regularly with your Pathways Team, which includes PHSRC Pathways Program Managers and your assigned Health Science Student Coach. This will be approx. 3-4 meetings per semester.
Participate in Pathways workshops and attend specific PHSRC events like the Health Careers Fair
Enroll in specific credit courses during fall and spring semester. More details on the required course enrollments found further down the page.

Additional opportunities may arise during Year 1 in the Pathways program, including shadowing at local clinics and hospitals such as the Phillips Neighborhood Clinic and M Health Fairview Smiley's Clinic.

Years Two through Four

Students will work with their Pathways support team to build out a personalized plan that will shape their curricular and co-curricular experiences. Some of these experiences will be required to meet program requirements, some highly recommended.

Required

Participate in meaningful shadowing, volunteering, and leadership programming
Continue building out your Pre-Health Action Plan
Enroll in AHS 3401: Writing a Personal Statement (in the year of application to a health professional program)
Engage in mentorship & networking with health professional school students and faculty
Participate in Pathways workshops and attend specific PHSRC events like the Health Professional School Expo

Highly Recommended

Enroll in AHS 2301: Orientation to Research and Clinical Research
Conduct research either independently or within a structured program
Participate in pre-health leadership programming

First Year Pathways Courses

Pathways students are required to enroll in the following courses during the first year on campus.

Fall 2024

OUE 1101: Academic Skills Refresher
1 credit, meets in-person, A-term Fall Semester, date/time TBD

This specific Pathways-only section of OUE 1101 will be an opportunity to learn together in a cohort experience. The road to health professional programs includes rigorous science prerequisite coursework, which then only gets more challenging when you enter health professional programs. Building this course into the first year of the Pathways program will help students to master key skills including: effective study habits, critical thinking strategies, time and stress management, etc. This will set them up to meet the challenges ahead and be prepared to enter into a health degree program.

Spring 2025

AHS 1104: Experiences in Health
2 credits, in-person, Fridays, 2:30 - 4:25pm

This course will give Pathways students a unique opportunity to go behind the scenes in the U of M Health Science schools and colleges for hands-on career exploration opportunities. More information about this course can be found below.

Pathways Program Course Outline

Students in the Health Profession Pathways program have certain PHSRC courses that are either required or highly recommended for them to take during their undergraduate career.

The courses listed here are all taught by Pre-Health Student Resource staff, and are focused on important steps along a student's pre-health journey. Read more about these and all the courses offered by the PHSRC.

Course	Required or Recommended	Timing
AHS 1101, 1102, 1611, or 1612	required (one of the listed courses)	During your first two years of undergraduate
AHS 1104	required	Spring semester, first-year
AHS 1613	recommended	Second year and beyond
AHS 2301	recommended	Second year and beyond
AHS 3401	required	During year prior to health professional school application

Student working in a lab dropping liquid in test tube

students cleaning fake plaque off model mouth

student practicing doing laparoscopic surgery

student measuring angle on a leg, learning about physical therapy

Course Highlight: AHS 1104

In the spring semester of their first year, Pathways students will participate in an exclusive course, AHS 1104: Experiences in Health.

In this course, students will build on the career exploration they started in Fall semester.

They will spend a few weeks in the classroom with PHSRC staff along with faculty from the Center for Interprofessional Health, learning about interprofessional teams and continuing to reflect on their career decisions.

Most of the class sessions will be spent visiting the University of Minnesota Health Science schools and colleges and engaging in hands-on, experiential learning opportunities.

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Course Highlight: AHS 1104

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