Engineer trying to go to med school

[GiveMeTheTruthPlease]

I graduated with a BS in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon last year. I finished in 4 years with a 3.2 GPA.

I took calc 1, 2 & 3, diff eq 1, gen chem 1 & 2, organic chem, biochem, chem lab, physics 1 & 2, bio 1, physiology, thermodynamics 1 & 2, fluid mechanics, optimization algorithms, physical chem, heat and mass transfer. I also took (and got A's in) 4 psychology classes: abnormal psych, social psych, clinical psych, and perception & consciousness. Also took a few other chem E classes and chem E labs and a probably a couple other technical classes I'm forgetting.

I got either B's or A's in all of my technical classes except for chem lab, physics 1, calc 2 and calc 3... I got C's. Those were all in freshman and sophomore year. My GPA freshman/sophomore year was about 2.8, my GPA junior/senior year was about 3.5. There are no pluses or minuses at CMU. In case you didn't know CMU is a really difficult school in terms of getting a high GPA. Not that that's an excuse of course.

My college activities basically consisted of sports. I played varsity football, intramural football, intramural basketball, and did club wrestling. I was also pledge class president for a fraternity.

I've been working as a systems engineer since I graduated, doing software programming/coding which is good I guess because it's a good skill to have but annoying because I'm not using any of my knowledge in the physical sciences. Over the past two years my interest in going to med school has increased a lot.

So my question is... if my goal is to go to med school... what should I do? Start prepping for an MCAT? Volunteer at a hospital? Take classes somewhere because I either need them as admission requirements or to replace some of my poor grades? In which order should I do these things, if at all? Should I give up on my goal because I have no chance of getting in anywhere?

Thanks for reading and I would greatly appreciate any words of advice at all.

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[691622]

Do you have any volunteering experience? or any experiences that are cool? anything that defines the type of person you are? any clinical exposure?

if you didn't volunteer at all during undergrad then you gotta start now. get inside a hospital or any clinical setting. start shadowing physicians in as many specialties as you can get. start studying for the MCAT. make sure you have all your pre-reqs done too (genchem1/2 orgo 1/2 bio1/2 physics 1/2, etc.) Hopefully you can show some sort of altruism within 2 years

there's always hope man, if anyone tells you that you should give up just ignore them. people will comment and say they can't help you unless you have an MCAT score, but for now just start getting exposure in a clinical setting with patients. you need to show that you know what you're getting yourself into when adcoms ask "why medicine"

I'd guess you have about 2 years or more before you get into a medical school based on the information you gave us

edit: pledge class president is a joke lol don't put that on your app haha

 

[GiveMeTheTruthPlease]

Hey thanks a lot for the helpful response. You pretty much answered my questions according to my rough plan right now, which is the following.

I just got assigned by my employer to a software project in Florida so I plan to work on that throughout 2016 during the day, save up money, and volunteer at a hospital or some other medical environment and start reviewing material for the mcat and my remaining science class requirements during the evening.

I have orgo chem 2, orgo chem lab, physics lab, bio 2, and bio lab left.

So here's another question I have: What's the best way to go about completing these remaining requirements?

Right now I'm thinking about a post-baccalaureate program. Northwestern has a specialized career advancement program in which a student can select 4-8 courses of his/her choice.

The problem I'm noticing is that a lot of the post-bac pre-med programs require that you have less than half of the science requirements for med school. I have 7/12 so they don't work for me.

Also if anyone has any tips on going about finding opportunities for volunteer experience in the medical field (specifically in NE Florida) that would be cool.

And yeah you're right about the pledge class thing.... smh.

 

[691622]

i'm not knowledgeable about post-bac programs or the best ways to go about finishing pre-reqs post undergrad, so I can't really help you there.

volunteering is pretty straight forward and easy to get into. just look for hospitals around where you live and they have information on their website. ED volunteer is probably the most popular i think. kinda cookie cutter tho. it's gunna be hard to find something thatll make you stand out, but as long as youre doing something you care about then it doesn't matter how standout it is, just get involved in the community for the sake of donating your time to a good cause.

keep searching this site for people with similar stories you have and see what they did. see if it worked or if it didn't and then come up with a plan tailored to yourself. you can do it