Doing electrical engineering in undergrad?

[Intuitive]

I love math and physics, and also like the problem solving that comes along with engineering and yet many people have told me not to do it if I want to get into medical school due to GPA. Is this really true? I am prepared to study >7 hours a day (weekends included) and put in the work needed.

Is it really impossible to maintain a 3.7+ in EE as many people put it? I've also heard engineering majors tend to do better on the MCAT as compared to traditional biology/chemistry majors. Can anyone shed some light on this?

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[avatarftw]

I would highly recommend NOT doing EE if you want a high GPA. A lot of my engineering friends (top 20 school) had 2.7 GPA's because apparently that was the average GPA for engineering. The ADCOMS may very well know that certain majors are much harder than others, but if they have to choose a 4.0GPA English major versus a 2.9GPA EE major...you know who they'll choose. (assuming everything else is equal)

I love math and physics, and also like the problem solving that comes along with engineering and yet many people have told me not to do it if I want to get into medical school due to GPA. Is this really true? I am prepared to study >7 hours a day (weekends included) and put in the work needed.

Is it really impossible to maintain a 3.7+ in EE as many people put it? I've also heard engineering majors tend to do better on the MCAT as compared to traditional biology/chemistry majors. Can anyone shed some light on this?

 

[Intuitive]

I would highly recommend NOT doing EE if you want a high GPA. A lot of my engineering friends (top 20 school) had 2.7 GPA's because apparently that was the average GPA for engineering. The ADCOMS may very well know that certain majors are much harder than others, but if they have to choose a 4.0GPA English major versus a 2.9GPA EE major...you know who they'll choose. (assuming everything else is equal)

I've always thought the average was low because most people didn't try as hard and just put in the work to pass with a C. Again, I'm pretty much planning to split my time between studying, eating and sleeping and understand that my program is much more rigorous than a traditional premed's.

 

[Badger MD]

I've always thought the average was low because most people didn't try as hard and just put in the work to pass with a C. Again, I'm pretty much planning to split my time between studying, eating and sleeping and understand that my program is much more rigorous than a traditional premed's.

I wouldn't do it... scroll through this forum looking for the engineering topics... the consensus seems to be that engineering is not the path to take if you want to keep a GPA high enough for medical school. As the previous poster said, while medical schools know the difference between difficult majors, a 3.0 in engineering doesn't beat out a 3.7 history major. (Also, you mentioned engineering majors scoring slightly higher on the MCAT, data would also suggest humanity majors do as well)

Also, while its easy to say know that you're willing to study seven hours a day to make the grade, it'll be very easy to fail to do that. Its just like a new year's resolution... you'll keep up with it for a month or two.

Regardless, the best of luck to you in your decesion making process! 👍

 

[Intuitive]

I wouldn't do it... scroll through this forum looking for the engineering topics... the consensus seems to be that engineering is not the path to take if you want to keep a GPA high enough for medical school. As the previous poster said, while medical schools know the difference between difficult majors, a 3.0 in engineering doesn't beat out a 3.7 history major. (Also, you mentioned engineering majors scoring slightly higher on the MCAT, data would also suggest humanity majors do as well)

Also, while its easy to say know that you're willing to study seven hours a day to make the grade, it'll be very easy to fail to do that. Its just like a new year's resolution... you'll keep up with it for a month or two.

Regardless, the best of luck to you in your decesion making process! 👍

I've researched through it, and it seems quite a few members on here are doing this path and so far doing really well (wishing they would chime in). I understand that point about the GPA, however I am willing to put in the work. And I did keep a 5 hour a day of studying regiment throughout high-school, I didn't have much of a social life which made focusing on school easier. 😀

 

[avatarftw]

The point is that while it is possible to get into medical school with a tough major, why set yourself up for failure?

For example, you could work 40 hours/week and do research while taking 18 credits of tough science credits each semester. However, why not take the path that is more likely to lead to success? From my experience, at our college, the engineers were always studying. Why would you want to compete with the cream of the crop academically? Its like this: would you rather race a high school sprinter or Usain Bolt? Even if you are faster than Bolt, it would behoove you to beat the sure thing.

A moderate stance is that you take a year of classes (I don't know if you will have to "declare" as an engineering major when you enter your college) and then if you're doing well in your pre-engineering classes or whatever it is, to continue doing so.

You could also just decide that you like engineering; they do the best financially for bachelor's degrees. (If I am correct from looking at Forbes data) Good luck!

I've researched through it, and it seems quite a few members on here are doing this path and so far doing really well (wishing they would chime in). I understand that point about the GPA, however I am willing to put in the work. And I did keep a 5 hour a day of studying regiment throughout high-school, I didn't have much of a social life which made focusing on school easier. 😀

 

[Intuitive]

The point is that while it is possible to get into medical school with a tough major, why set yourself up for failure?

For example, you could work 40 hours/week and do research while taking 18 credits of tough science credits each semester. However, why not take the path that is more likely to lead to success? From my experience, at our college, the engineers were always studying. Why would you want to compete with the cream of the crop academically? Its like this: would you rather race a high school sprinter or Usain Bolt? Even if you are faster than Bolt, it would behoove you to beat the sure thing.

A moderate stance is that you take a year of classes (I don't know if you will have to "declare" as an engineering major when you enter your college) and then if you're doing well in your pre-engineering classes or whatever it is, to continue doing so.

You could also just decide that you like engineering; they do the best financially for bachelor's degrees. (If I am correct from looking at Forbes data) Good luck!

Thank you for the advice so far, Chino. 😀

Hm, so are you suggesting to take a path of studies I won't enjoy despite the fact it would statistically give me a better chance at medical school? I don't enjoy the liberal arts and humanities nor do I do to well in those classes, nor do I like the prospect of memorization of core concepts that comes with a biology major (would rather save that for med-school, ya know?). I was also thinking of Biophysics or biomedical engineering as other options I would greatly enjoy. And besides, isn't there much more of a cutthroat competition in the biology/chemistry majors (traditional) rather than engineering as about 80% of those majors are aiming for medical school? I've also read a few blogs and articles that document evidence where students in the engineering/physics department had done much better on the MCAT than their biology/chemistry counterparts.

Would like to hear back from you, Chino. 😀

 

[Badger MD]

Thank you for the advice so far, Chino. 😀

Hm, so are you suggesting to take a path of studies I won't enjoy despite the fact it would statistically give me a better chance at medical school? I don't enjoy the liberal arts and humanities nor do I do to well in those classes, nor do I like the prospect of memorization of core concepts that comes with a biology major (would rather save that for med-school, ya know?). I was also thinking of Biophysics or biomedical engineering as other options I would greatly enjoy. And besides, isn't there much more of a cutthroat competition in the biology/chemistry majors (traditional) rather than engineering as about 80% of those majors are aiming for medical school? I've also read a few blogs and articles that document evidence where students in the engineering/physics department had done much better on the MCAT than their biology/chemistry counterparts.

Would like to hear back from you, Chino. 😀

I don't think hes suggesting to take something you despise, but rather something you will still enjoy that is easier... Something to note about the statistics you mentioned, while they may have had higher MCAT scores, their GPAs may have been significantly lower. And a high MCAT will never completely compensate for a low GPA.

Just some food for thought 🙂

 

[Phillyborn]

From my experience, at our college, the engineers were always studying. Why would you want to compete with the cream of the crop academically? Its like this: would you rather race a high school sprinter or Usain Bolt? Even if you are faster than Bolt, it would behoove you to beat the sure thing.

I can't resist a track analogy. If you look at college as a competition, that is what you'll get. But I would argue that you're setting yourself up for failure and development of some pretty unhealthy social skills in this is your outlook.

If you were training for the Olympics, wouldn't you rather have Usain Bolt as a training partner? (Daniel Bailey who ran 9.91 when he trained with Bolt in 2009). Sure it may look great to run against a bunch of high schoolers and blow them away with a 10.4, but at the end of the day, you're no better for it. And when your patient's need someone who can crack 10 seconds to figure out why their previously healthy 2 year old daughter is now in status epilepticus, you'll be frustrated with the degree you need to push to even get close.

What I'm trying to get at is this
1) Getting into medical school is far from an end all, be all. It is a step towards a career. If you write it as your ultimate goal, you are setting yourself up to be 32, have a checklist of 4 items filled out and realize you've missed the past 14+ years of your life.
2) You could easily change your mind and decide you want to do something besides medicine (EE would be a fine option). If you try to take one for the team here and pick a major you don't like just to get higher grades, you could end up
a) unfulfilled, not getting into medical school, and stuck with a career path you don't enjoy.
b) getting into medical school and being resentful that you've given up something you love for your patients (which is a bad situation as you tend to exhibit splitting on them whenever they are noncompliant).

While your grades MAY be lower in EE, realize that adcoms know the difficulty of your courses and factor this in (as has been said). If you must think about it only in terms of getting in to medical school, when I interview applicants I want to see that they're passionate about what they're doing- not just slogging through it to the next step. If you think you'll like EE, please try it out.

Plus, nearly half of my class (top 20 school) were engineers in undergrad. It's a way of thinking about problems that carries through well into life in general in my opinion.

 

[avatarftw]

I don't know, at our college (top 20 college) the engineers had the best SAT/ACT scores from HS and the best GPA's, most AP's taken, etc. They studied their #$(*#$*( off in college.

Even so, their average GPA was below a 3.0. I agree with what you say about getting into a good studying mode, but its not like the non-engineering majors are cakewalks. Getting A's in the pre-med courses will be enough of a challenge, in my opinion.

In regards to the track analogy, why not just run a 9.9 against the high schoolers and be assured victory? (instead of running a 10.4, which is actually VERY fast for a HS sprinter; the best runner in our state ran 10.5)

I can't resist a track analogy. If you look at college as a competition, that is what you'll get. But I would argue that you're setting yourself up for failure and development of some pretty unhealthy social skills in this is your outlook.

If you were training for the Olympics, wouldn't you rather have Usain Bolt as a training partner? (Daniel Bailey who ran 9.91 when he trained with Bolt in 2009). Sure it may look great to run against a bunch of high schoolers and blow them away with a 10.4, but at the end of the day, you're no better for it. And when your patient's need someone who can crack 10 seconds to figure out why their previously healthy 2 year old daughter is now in status epilepticus, you'll be frustrated with the degree you need to push to even get close.

What I'm trying to get at is this
1) Getting into medical school is far from an end all, be all. It is a step towards a career. If you write it as your ultimate goal, you are setting yourself up to be 32, have a checklist of 4 items filled out and realize you've missed the past 14+ years of your life.
2) You could easily change your mind and decide you want to do something besides medicine (EE would be a fine option). If you try to take one for the team here and pick a major you don't like just to get higher grades, you could end up
a) unfulfilled, not getting into medical school, and stuck with a career path you don't enjoy.
b) getting into medical school and being resentful that you've given up something you love for your patients (which is a bad situation as you tend to exhibit splitting on them whenever they are noncompliant).

While your grades MAY be lower in EE, realize that adcoms know the difficulty of your courses and factor this in (as has been said). If you must think about it only in terms of getting in to medical school, when I interview applicants I want to see that they're passionate about what they're doing- not just slogging through it to the next step. If you think you'll like EE, please try it out.

Plus, nearly half of my class (top 20 school) were engineers in undergrad. It's a way of thinking about problems that carries through well into life in general in my opinion.

 

[Phillyborn]

I don't know, at our college (top 20 college) the engineers had the best SAT/ACT scores from HS and the best GPA's, most AP's taken, etc. They studied their #$(*#$*( off in college.

Even so, their average GPA was below a 3.0. I agree with what you say about getting into a good studying mode, but its not like the non-engineering majors are cakewalks. Getting A's in the pre-med courses will be enough of a challenge, in my opinion.

In regards to the track analogy, why not just run a 9.9 against the high schoolers and be assured victory? (instead of running a 10.4, which is actually VERY fast for a HS sprinter; the best runner in our state ran 10.5)

I agree that non-engeering majors are by no means cakewalks. You could literally pick any major and find examples of extremely difficult topics they grasp. In most of these cases, the individual understands the concept because they feel a connection to the topic. What I was trying to get at was if the OP is inclined to do EE, then that is likely the type of person they are. Trying to cram themselves into a mold of the "ideal premed" has many negative future repercussions.

To get back to the track analogy... 🙂
There has never been a high school boy who has broken 10 seconds. While in sprinting you could argue that this has a lot to do with maturity, if you move to a longer distance (2 miles) I think this demonstrates the point well. In the past 20 years, the number of high school boys to break 9:00 is fairly clearly delineated into pre and post internet. The competition and seeing that others in the US are racing under 9:00 has pushed individuals harder and thus there has been far more sub 9s in the most recent 10 years (big fish in a big pond argument). While you could argue that the guys who ran 8:57 in the mid 90's were just as talented as the guys running 8:45 in the past 5 years, out of the younger guys who pushed earlier and ran those 8:45s, you see them running faster than any American has ever.

Sorry for track-geeking out, hopefully the message isn't lost. In my opinion, pushing early and reinforcing good work ethic for something your passionate about is better for you as a person than coasting and blowing away the competition.