You can probably see yourself choosing a Doctor of Chiropractic degree when you realize it emphasizes a non-pharmaceutical, non-invasive approach to healthcare. You’ll also want to plan the most time-efficient way to achieve that goal. The sooner you have your chiropractic degree, the sooner you can begin helping people achieve their best possible musculoskeletal health.
One wise option is to go for a concurrent degree – a term that means you essentially earn two college degrees in a shorter amount of time than it would take to do the bachelor’s (B.S.) and graduate degrees separately. The significant advantage: it can reduce time in college by up to a year.
When you’re looking to become a doctor of chiropractic, a concurrent degree plan certainly has advantages, and many chiropractic college students have chosen this path to enter the chiropractic profession.
Academic program coordinators acknowledge this degree plan reduces time in school from a semester to up to a year. (More information here.) To see if a concurrent college degree plan is for you, see if these statements are true for you:
In the B.S./D.C. degree program at Cleveland University-Kansas City College of Chiropractic, you embark on a plan leading to the B.S. in Human Biology. That means completing the minimum of 90 credit hours of foundational and general education courses that are part of the requirement for admission.
These courses include American history, general psychology, English composition, college algebra, and health science terminology. Later, you’ll move into the science courses, such as physics with labs, general and organic chemistry, and anatomy and physiology.
The concurrent degree plan shows its advantages when you move into the upper-division life sciences courses. Examples of these classes include “Measurements in Exercise Science Lab, “Exercise Testing and Prescription,” and “Exercise & Cardiovascular/Metabolic Disease.”
Specific upper-level courses – often starting with a “3” or “4” designation – are also part of the Doctor of Chiropractic academic coursework.
So, these 25-plus hours of courses are doing double duty by counting toward both the B.S. and D.C. requirements.
Suppose you already have some college coursework and love the idea of a D.C. program. In that case, it’s possible some of your biological and life science courses could satisfy the B.S. degree requirements. Your school’s academic advisor will be able to guide you, or you can contact CUKC for all the details.
At this point, you’re right to think that a concurrent degree is a magnificent idea, because it is. At the same time, remember that it’s an ambitious degree plan. The accelerated pace of learning will require self-discipline and your best efforts.
The right program will offer a combination of student services and chiropractic college faculty who love to teach the next generation of chiropractors.
Cleveland University-Kansas City (CUKC) is a private, nonprofit, chiropractic and life sciences university in Overland Park, Kansas, a prominent suburb of the Kansas City metro.
The University’s College of Chiropractic has graduated more than 11,500 students into the workforce since its founding in 1922. Our mission for 100+ years has been to educate and develop leaders in health promotion. We believe in embracing behaviors that help people control and improve their health.
The CUKC B.S. in Human Biology is intentionally mapped to the coursework to the MCAT.® (Learn about the Medical College Admissions Test here.) Dr. McKenna Abercrombie, a senior Dermatology resident at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, Ann Arbor, Mich., said the accelerated undergraduate program “significantly shortened her time to be accepted into medical school.”
