Biomedical Engineering Degree as Backup If Dental School Doesn't Work Out

[JustNeedAdvice]

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Hey Everyone!

I want to come here for advice as to my undergraduate degree. I am currently going to start my junior year of fall quarter as a Public Health Sciences Major. I am contemplating switching to Biomedical Engineer Premedical BS in case I do not get into Dental School. I like the overall aspects of Biomedical Engineering, and I love that some dental school requirements coexist with biomedical engineering courses. Realistically, I do not know what I can do with a Public Health Sciences degree. I understand the course load will be more, but for me as long as I have a back up plan I am not too worried. I want to know your guys/gals opinion on this and whether or not the difficult course load will take its toll on my GPA and ultimately not allowing me to get accepted to dental school. I know this is a BIG risk, but realistically I only have a 3.2 GPA. I want to know if the job market is stable with Biomedical Engineering degrees.

 

[jlee110]

Hey
I was a chem major undergrad and got a bioengineering masters degree after I graduated. The past year I was actually enrolled in a bioengineering phd program, but decided to leave to pursue dental school. Since I was not a bioengineering major undergrad, I can't help you too much with the exact Requirements,however, from what I have seen, the requirements are pretty rigorous. If you are serious about bioengineering, you should make sure you work out your scheduling to see if you can graduate on time. If it is too much, you should also consider doing what I did and possibly get a masters degree after you graduate. That way you can focus undergrad by getting the highest possible gpa with your current major and then possibly pursue a masters to not only get the bioengineering degree but also possibly boost your gpa with hardwork. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Hey Everyone!

I want to come here for advice as to my undergraduate degree. I am currently going to start my junior year of fall quarter as a Public Health Sciences Major. I am contemplating switching to Biomedical Engineer Premedical BS in case I do not get into Dental School. I like the overall aspects of Biomedical Engineering, and I love that some dental school requirements coexist with biomedical engineering courses. Realistically, I do not know what I can do with a Public Health Sciences degree. I understand the course load will be more, but for me as long as I have a back up plan I am not too worried. I want to know your guys/gals opinion on this and whether or not the difficult course load will take its toll on my GPA and ultimately not allowing me to get accepted to dental school. I know this is a BIG risk, but realistically I only have a 3.2 GPA. I want to know if the job market is stable with Biomedical Engineering degrees.

 

[squigloo]

Hey Everyone!

I want to come here for advice as to my undergraduate degree. I am currently going to start my junior year of fall quarter as a Public Health Sciences Major. I am contemplating switching to Biomedical Engineer Premedical BS in case I do not get into Dental School. I like the overall aspects of Biomedical Engineering, and I love that some dental school requirements coexist with biomedical engineering courses. Realistically, I do not know what I can do with a Public Health Sciences degree. I understand the course load will be more, but for me as long as I have a back up plan I am not too worried. I want to know your guys/gals opinion on this and whether or not the difficult course load will take its toll on my GPA and ultimately not allowing me to get accepted to dental school. I know this is a BIG risk, but realistically I only have a 3.2 GPA. I want to know if the job market is stable with Biomedical Engineering degrees.

Keep in mind that if you still choose to apply to dental school, you will want to bring up that gpa. Biomed Engineering courses are significantly harder than what you will typically face in public health, and a 3.2 is already cutting it close.

 

[BMEEngineer]

BME is a great program, but if you're interested in pursuing a career in it, you might want to either ensure you're going to live in a big city on a coast, or pursue a Ph.D. At least in the middle of the country, there are limited jobs available for BMEs because the programs are relatively broad and you don't get trained well enough with any specificity to do the work of more typical engineers. Engineering is a very different mindset than other majors. There is always a heavy focus on problem solving and design work-and the biggest time sink is doing problem sets, not necessarily memorization (which I am sure will be a strong focus of any professional program). If you're not great at calculus, vector physics, and advanced chemistry and biology...you're in for a lot of work. It's very possible that you're willing to work that hard, but I have to agree with squigloo that it will be difficult to raise a GPA going into an engineering major. That being said, I think there is a certain level of respect from some admissions committees to see that you have persevered through a difficult major.

 

[BenzylAcetate]

BME is a great program, but if you're interested in pursuing a career in it, you might want to either ensure you're going to live in a big city on a coast, or pursue a Ph.D. At least in the middle of the country, there are limited jobs available for BMEs because the programs are relatively broad and you don't get trained well enough with any specificity to do the work of more typical engineers.

Very strongly agree with this. A bioengineering type position is actually fairly difficult to find with just a B.S, in bioengineering. Because the field is broad, you wont bring as much to the table as someone in a traditional engineering field like chemical, mechanical, or electrical engineering.

The larger issue, though, is that successful job applicants with any engineering degree typically do a number of internships or co-ops throughout the last few years of their degree program. If you make the switch now, plan to dedicate at least 1 summer to some type of internship, ideally more.

 

[CWL]

I faced a similar situation in my sophomore year. I had the choice of staying in BME or switching to a biology.

I posted on here and I got a variety of suggestions and advices.

People who stay in BME believes that it gives them a more unique background compared to just regular biology students. BME could serve as a back up but you have to really invest your time in it.

I choose to switch to biology thou, it will be a long story if I had to explain why.

 

[doc toothache]

A degree in biomed engineering is, hands down, a better choice than bio.

 

[flegg]

You'll have a lot more time to study for the DAT as a bio major (as opposed to BME).

You'll actually learn something as a BME major (as opposed to most Bio majors).

That said, a BS in BME won't by itself land you a decent job as others have said.

 

[doc toothache]

You'll have a lot more time to study for the DAT as a bio major (as opposed to BME).You'll actually learn something as a BME major (as opposed to most Bio majors).That said, a BS in BME won't by itself land you a decent job as others have said.

Bio will?

 

[SicEm]

Ok fine I'll be more specific. Depends on the school. At a good school there MAY be a bit less competition for the A grades in BME courses (less pre-health kids). Which in some ways makes it easier, but even at a place like UCLA I would rather be Bio than BME if having a life and time to study for the DAT was a big concern.

And I'm even hesitant to say that 3rd sentence. Bio kids were so bad at genetics and the more mathematical portions of biochemistry is was extremely easy to be top 1-5% on tests in those courses.

And this is in context of the OP. If he is pursuing BME as a backup then he will want to go to a good BME program where there will be good competition. So yea, definitely more time as Bio major, definitely.

I think he was referencing your last sentence about the job prospects. My husband is a BME (in Texas no less!) and has not had any trouble finding a job (he's even had a previous coworker try to lure him away from his current job because they're desperate for engineers!) But good luck finding a job as a bio major, with anything less than a PhD your starting salary will be 1/3 of that of an engineer (with just a bachelors) and you might end up with your head in a Petri dish day in and day out.

It's a quandary: bio will be better if you do go to dental school, BME will be better if you don't.

 

[BMEEngineer]

Agree until you said bio will be better if you do go to dental school. There are plenty of reasons to be a BME as a predent if you aren't worried about time + course-load.

I agree. If you can handle the time+courseload, the BME program tends to give you design experience (which really helped me on the PAT to visualize things-especially given my experience in 3D CAD software like Solidworks). I think that Solidworks experience will probably help particularly if we learn CEREC crowns in school. Also, honestly, the difficult course load also prepares you to manage your time much better than some other students. Studying for the DAT was not a huge undertaking for me where I had to give up my whole life because of my time management skills, and I'm not a born "genius". I took some very interesting bio-focused classes like tissue engineering and biomaterials which could directly translate to some coursework in dental school. I also think that the ability to look outside the box, inherent in an engineer's training, adds diversity to a dental school class and will probably help me as a practitioner and potential business owner one day.

 

[Dreamstoo]

I agree. If you can handle the time+courseload, the BME program tends to give you design experience (which really helped me on the PAT to visualize things-especially given my experience in 3D CAD software like Solidworks). I think that Solidworks experience will probably help particularly if we learn CEREC crowns in school. Also, honestly, the difficult course load also prepares you to manage your time much better than some other students. Studying for the DAT was not a huge undertaking for me where I had to give up my whole life because of my time management skills, and I'm not a born "genius". I took some very interesting bio-focused classes like tissue engineering and biomaterials which could directly translate to some coursework in dental school. I also think that the ability to look outside the box, inherent in an engineer's training, adds diversity to a dental school class and will probably help me as a practitioner and potential business owner one day.

Not going to lie, I'm pre med but I just ran by this forum, biomedical engineers especially at my undergrad were notoriously known to have one of the hardest course loads. However, I have met many who have between 3.4-3.6s who are pre-med and pre-dental yet are able to manage their time that they are able to relax and hang out with friends on certain days. Especially those with tissue/biomaterials concentration.