Everyone's experiences are different, and everyone's opinions are valid. I have my BS & MS in EE from MIT and am now an MS1 after several years in technology (hardware, software, systems). People often ask me "which is harder." Who cares? Will it really matter in the decision making process? Do you decide what to do (or not to do) based on difficulty? You ought to determine your motivations for doing engineering, medicine, or whatever. That will ultimately guide your personal satisfaction and commitment. I will say that at MIT, (even in non-engineering courses) memorization was kept to a minimum and I can count on one hand the number of closed-book or multiple-choice exams we took. I, too, thought I would get around memorization by understanding the concepts, but I learned when preparing for MCATs that there are some things you just have to memorize. Also the volume is such that you need to budget your time and just bear down and memorize. Depending on what type of learner you are (visual, auditory, etc) figure out how to make the learning process active. I found in Anatomy and Neuro that drawing things out was the best way to store the information for long-term. Also the problem-solving and algorithm experiences from engineering can work to your advantage, personally I found it helpful to find "similarities and differences" (a la Sesame Street) when memorizing rather than just lists of things. Think about how things relate to each other and it won't seem like plain old memorization. Good luck.
To the original OP, PM me if you have specific questions.
