Engineering majors...............

[aydinhatemi]

I am an Electrical Engineering major (toughest on earth) and I have average GPA (3.54 cum.,3.76 science). I am taking Mcat this april but my practice tests shows 34-35 (who knows what will happen in the real think). Do adcoms treat us differently. Do they consider how hard it is to be an EE. Please share your ideas with be I am very stressed out, when I see bio majors with 4.0 and research. And they are very confident and make me nervous. GOD, I wish I could go back to my freshman year and fix things up. Now I will end up my no-name state medical school (University of K. (somewhere in south, lots of horses and tobacco)) Whatever I wanted to go a top 20 school but I guess my scores are not that good... When ever I go to this website www.mdapplicants.com profiles freaks me out. People with 37 Mcats and still rejected. It does not make sense. There are two ways to explain this. #1 information about profiles are not true since anybody can enter any profile, or #2 these school really want a higher mcat than their published averages. (may be their averages are skewed because of URM's and you might need a much higher score to get in if you are white)..

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[mellotron]

Oh boy. You write like an engineer, I should know So let me take these one by one:
- I don?t know if adcoms actually treat you differently. In my interviews, I will say that in addition to the standard ethical type questions that I think an extra stress was put on why an engineer would be interested in medicine. They want to make sure you?ve really thought this through. My engineering background is integral as to why I ever got interested in medicine, so covering this topic was the brunt of the interviews typically.
- However, they WILL treat you differently if you come across with this ?toughest on earth? mentality. Just an early warning.
- That website is interesting, but I think it?s heavily front-loaded. On the other hand, there?s no way to explain away 37MCAT rejections. It does happen, so best thing is to lose all entitlement at the door.

This is a tough process, and you?re going to have to prove that you?re a compassionate human underneath it all. Perhaps an added struggle for engineers? The fact that you tooted your own horn, discredited a fine institution and probably offended URM's in the matter of a few sentences makes me wonder...

 

[SunnyS81]

Well, I'm no EE, but here's my experience.

1) For interviews in the southeast, people knew that my school was a good engineering school and would mention it.
2) People would ask what an IE is, and in my explanation I would relate it to medicine.
3) Some of my interviewers vocalized that engineering is harder. I know when Emory's Dean of Admissions came to talk to my school he said he adjusts for GPA's of engineers.
4) A 3.54 in EE is really good. It isn't like you can change your gpa now. Like everyone else does, apply to a variety of schools and see how your cards play out. The applicants website is strange because I don't think many people add to it. Just my opinion.

 

[::Seabass::]

dude, take a DEEP breath, you're going to be FINE as long as you are not some freak of nature

I'm a civil with a 3.4 and it wasn't a problem and they do realize engineering is demanding and you already have a lot of the thought processes figured out that aren't taught in classes like biology. if you've had any kind of interning experience (I recommend this over the summer if you haven't) this is good because it gives you concrete time in the field making sure it isn't for you.

I work as a full time engineer and they loved having something different to ask questions about

 

[xaelia]

Originally posted by aydinhatemi
When ever I go to this website www.mdapplicants.com profiles freaks me out.

Yes, the site is front-loaded:
474 profiles, with an average overall GPA of 3.62, science GPA of 3.58, and MCAT score of 31.6.

Those read like the average statistics at the "top 20" ranked medical schools. The collection of profiles is humbling, but what those 37R rejections really shows is there's more to the application than numbers. After all, there's only a handful of spots available at the "top" schools - and if you read the summaries of their application statistics published in U.S. News, the average MCAT at Harvard/JHU is a 33...which means (roughly speaking) there's as many 30 MCATs at those schools as there are 36 MCATs. It's simple mathematics that many of those students with ultra-high MCATs cannot be accepted; once you score a certain level, your intellectual competence is no longer in doubt, and it comes down to the many unquantifiable aspects of the application.

To be sure, grades and MCAT scores matter, but you'll go crazy if you focus solely on the numbers. I mean, sheesh, half the schools out there have acceptance rates <10% - it's a tough competition against lots of other amazingly bright and accomplished folks. Just do the best you can and count yourself lucky with what you get....

#1 information about profiles are not true since anybody can enter any profile

I've read every profile submitted to the site, and deleted quite a few that were obviously unacceptable (ever wonder why the IDs go up into the 500s when there's only 474 profiles on the site?). They are screened, but I'm not omniscient....

 

[Random Access]

Originally posted by aydinhatemi
my scores are not that good... When ever I go to this website www.mdapplicants.com profiles freaks me out. People with 37 Mcats and still rejected. It does not make sense. There are two ways to explain this. #1 information about profiles are not true since anybody can enter any profile, or #2 these school really want a higher mcat than their published averages. (may be their averages are skewed because of URM's and you might need a much higher score to get in if you are white)..

How about a 3rd explanation:

They could have totally tanked the interview. They might not have good extracurriculars. They might have poor recommendations. You know nothing about these people! There's more to getting into med school than an MCAT score.

I know that you're stuck on that 37, but that's really all you know about these people. They might give a self-eval of their own information, but you don't really know how the committees see it based on a site like that.

 

[aydinhatemi]

I want to thank you all for replying my post. I know it is more than numbers that makes you accepted and everybody is aware of that. How can they see what you are in a 1 hour interview. Unless you are an arrogant prick, you can give appropriate answers to adcoms' questions. So why this should disqualify you
from being a doctor.
I am just frustrated. I have been through a lot of hard stuff in my life but never seen such steep competition. Do not get me wrong. I am just a guy from the other side of the campus, trying to shift the direction of my life. This is not because I do not like what am I doing now. Actually physics and math are the only two subjects that I do not fall sleep when I study them. I mean how these numbers work. For example stanford only accepts 80+ students. However their MCAT average is 33 and GPA 3.7. I mean I can give many people just out of my school. However most of them do not even get close to be accepted by stanford. When I see people with published papers, great EC. and perfect numbers,
How the hell they do not even get an interview?

 

[loyen]

I think I have a reasonably good idea why some of those "37 mcat, 3.8+ GPA people" don't even get interviews. Because they can be pretty dull. I'm sure if I was an admissions guru and all I did was look at bio majors and pre-meds that never left their rooms or spoke to people other then the voices in their heads, I would get a bit tired of it all too. Masters degree? Great! Volunteer experiance? Something to talk about!

Also, as someone who reads admissions and MCAT essays to make a few extra dollars here and there, it's amazing how many people turn in half-assed essays. Yes, we all know that you're good at math and science and you want to help people. But what makes you different from the other 1000 people that applied?

So even little things like being an enginneering major can tip the scales a bit - it just makes you stand out. I was a chemE, and every chemE from my undergrad that applied has been accepted to med school. Concidence? Maybe a little. But it can't hurt.

 

[8744]

Originally posted by aydinhatemi
I am an Electrical Engineering major (toughest on earth) and I have average GPA (3.54 cum.,3.76 science). I am taking Mcat this april but my practice tests shows 34-35 (who knows what will happen in the real think). Do adcoms treat us differently. Do they consider how hard it is to be an EE. Please share your ideas with be I am very stressed out, when I see bio majors with 4.0 and research. And they are very confident and make me nervous. GOD, I wish I could go back to my freshman year and fix things up. Now I will end up my no-name state medical school (University of K. (somewhere in south, lots of horses and tobacco)) Whatever I wanted to go a top 20 school but I guess my scores are not that good... When ever I go to this website www.mdapplicants.com profiles freaks me out. People with 37 Mcats and still rejected. It does not make sense. There are two ways to explain this. #1 information about profiles are not true since anybody can enter any profile, or #2 these school really want a higher mcat than their published averages. (may be their averages are skewed because of URM's and you might need a much higher score to get in if you are white)..

Don't sweat it, buddy. I was a civil engineer and graduated many years ago with a GPA several orders of magnitude below yours and still managed to get accepted to the only two schools to which I applied.

It is hard to get into medical school, but not that hard. If you look at the statistics, half of the applicants are eventually accepted somewhere. I'm sure many of the unaccepted half had no business applying in the first place.

If you don't get in on your first attempt then try again. I presume you are a young guy.

Now admittadly, I'm down here in the South with the horses and tobacco, so your mileage may vary.

 

[lil pook]

Loyen--as a chem E did you find it hard to maintain a competitive GPA?

 

[aydinhatemi]

bump

 

[loyen]

lil pook Loyen--as a chem E did you find it hard to maintain a competitive GPA?

My big trouble was finding out that what I called "Competitive" in the world of ChemE was not the same as "competitive" in pre-med. I always thought a 3.4 was fine - until med school stats hit me in the face. It was never a problem for me though - my MCATs were good enough to make up for my not so-super GPA, and most schools I applied to knew that ChemE was tough.

One interviewer said "Well, you can handle the curriculum of med school since you've already been through enginneering..."

A nice little shot in arm there.

 

[benzo]

Some good advice here!

Assuming that you do decent on the MCAT you should have no proplem attracting attention and getting many interviews. In my humble opinion having an engineering degree will be an advantage to you in some ways. You've proven yourself capable of metabolizing complex technical information and at problem solving. This is good. But having proven yourself capable in that regard the question remains: can you interact with people in a compasionate and comfortable way? Can you make tough descicions with lives hanging in the balance? Your interview will be critical.

I would definately not assume that becoming an electrical engineer is more dificult than becoming a jazz guitarist, ballet dancer, master carpenter or anything else that requires skill, dedication and hours upon hours of practice. If I were interviewing you and you told me that your degree is the "toughest on earth" I'd know right away that you were talking through your ass about things you know nothing about. True you KNOW that an electrical enginering degree is hard to come by but saying so in an interview would be lame if not arrogant. If you said this in an interview I'd be tempted to think that THAT is why you want to become a doctor, because the degree is considered one of the toughest to obtain.

Back to my point. You will have no problem getting interviews, so the interview becomes critical. The admissions comittee will KNOW that you can get along great with your big Texas Instruments calculator but how you get along with PEOPLE is the huge factor that your stats will not show. So your essays and your interview is the key for you. Your numbers are fine. Don't worry too much about your numbers now. If I were you I'd focus on crafting an amazing personal statements that focuses on you as a person. You'll want to relay stories and experiences that describe a person well suited for medicine.

The truth is (again this is my OPINION) that there are all knids of people with the stats to get into med school that come off as flat, slightly arogant, dull or cocky or whatever during the interview and end up not getting in because of it.

 

[aydinhatemi]

bmp

 

[benzo]

Originally posted by heelpain
"Many know that a doctorate in physics, or one of the mathematical sciences would be one of the toughest to obtain, if not the most.

What makes you think so?

 

[Habari]

"because the degree is considered one of the toughest to obtain."

oh dear god.

 

[benzo]

Please allow me to clarify. My major point is that for you (the original poster of this thread; the one that I was addressing my comments to) my bet would be that you will get interviews and that when this happens, the question on the interviewrers mind MAY be something like this: Well, he obviosly can handle the courseload, but is he "doctor material". For you, the interview and your personal statement is critical.

Now let me spend a few more sentences on the peripheral point that I made about the relative difficulty of obtaining specific degrees. My only point (and it is a minor one) is that it is useless and futile to compare the relative difficulty of obtaining specific degrees. I question how one can be so bold as to state that a doctorate in Physics or a degree in Electrical Engineering is THE HARDEST degree to obtoin. It's the sort of bold statement that interviewres love to pounce on. Sure its tough to get those degrees, and its a long hard road to get an MD, but can anyone really say with any authority that one narrow field of human knowlege represents the most difficult to study.

I firmly stand by my original statement that an MD is considered one of the most difficult to obtain. If you were to ask the layperson what graduate degrees are the hardest to obtain I have no doubt that the MD would be up near the top. Still, I believe that such a distinction is somewhat silly and beside the point.

 

[8744]

Electrical Engineering is hard. Really hard. It puts everything else to shame on the academic difficulty scale. No classes have ever been as hard, including medical school, as the couple of electrical engineering classes I had to take for my Civil Engineering degree.

Sure, it is hard to be a jazz pianist or a clasical dancer, but these people enjoy their chosen field and throw themselves into their art with a passion which is hard to muster for things like differential equations or machine theory. (You know, all those XOR and XAND thingies.)

A lot of engineering education is just a brutal grind. A slow, dreary slog through pages of mathematics. Of course, this might explain why I gave up a perfectly good career as an engineer to go to medical school. (I was an engineer for almost eight years)

 

[c_skyeblu]

and I can piss further than you.....

hard is a relative term

Why do engineers w/ low GPAs insist that its b/c the program is ridiciously hard, just go become friends w/ some FOB, he'll be your study buddy.

 

[XCanadianRagwee]

I was an underwater basket weaving major...and let me tell you I was a pro in my class. I could hold my breath the longest, make the prettiest basket, and I even have the world record for largest basket ever made underwater.

Oh I suppose you want my stats. I have a 3.75 overall a 3.90 science, and I have a 38 on my MCAT (12, 13, 13, R). However I applied to several of the top 20 schools and even my state school. I was waitlisted on 10, rejected on 5, but never made it in.

Oh I have excellent extracurriculars, I worked in a hospital, and still do, and ahve shadowed 3 doctors, all who wrote excellent letters of rec. I was also the student body president at my school, among various other activities.

It's a crapshoot....

 

[bobmarley77]

I was a chemical engineering major. It's a good thing that AMCAS splits up the overall GPA. My science GPA was a 3.7...threw my engineering classes in the other category, which ended up being a 3.2 "other" GPA.

Of course most engineers would say that the engineering curriculum is the toughest...probably because you have 7 hours of homework nightly, the averages on most tests are in the lower 50s, and you find yourself in the computer lab at 3am while everyone else is sleeping.

LOL, the grading scale for my fluids class handed out on the first day was as follows: A 80-100 B 65-80 C 47-65 D 47-35. Good thing he curved the final grades!! It was the hardest C ever for me!

 

[bobmarley77]

LOL, underwater basket weaver. If I had to do it over again, I would've majored in sanitation engineering

 

[nietzsche628]

what the MCAT equivalent of a 1500 on the SAT? otherwise, what MCAT score puts you in the top 1 percent?

also, how come no one talks about the writing score? is that not as important as the numerical scores?

 

[Can U Feel It?]

Here are my 2 cents:
Relax dude

1.) Your grades are solid (ok you don't have a 3.9 but a 3.6 at my school in EE puts you in the top 10 - 15% of one of the hardest majors at my school) - & being in the top 15% at Illinois is impressive
2.) I'm in a broad-based engineering major & I have taken about 8 EE courses (I thought I wanted to go into optics ) - except for basic circuits & digital logic - every EE class I've had was harder than O Chem. I've taken pre-med courses and courses in a lot of engineering disciplines & EE is the hardest material I've come across
3.) I believe you said your MCAT's were high - a 36+ MCAt & a 3.6 GPA isn't going to keep you out of anywhere
4.) based on my conversations with several physicians who are involved with medical schools, the biggest concern they have with engineers is their ability to comunicate with patients (think about your classmates - how many of them are good communicators)

 

[Can U Feel It?]

Honestly - if you get good rec's, have solid clinical/research experience & can interview well, I wouldn't see why you wouldn't have a real good shot a top school

 

[CoverMe]

My brother, who graduated from UCD with an Aeronautical Engineering degree, named his first child on the grad student who tutored him thru all the Calc and "Star Trek Physics."

So, my brother is going along, busting his a$$, pulling down a SOLID gpa, and sometime during his junior year someone gets the bright idea to test him... and they FINALLY figure out he's dyslexic.

So, if my dyslexic brother can do it thru sheer will and determination....

Besides, if EE is the hardest thing in the world... every Adcom is gonna KNOW that you'll breeze thru medical school. It's totally exactly the same. I mean, except for the blood and stuff.

That being said... Don't give up. EVER.

Maybe bump up the gpa with some Post-Bacc basketweaving.





Oh, and don't touch my violin.

 

[bosco]

Originally posted by bobmarley77
I was a chemical engineering major. It's a good thing that AMCAS splits up the overall GPA. My science GPA was a 3.7...threw my engineering classes in the other category, which ended up being a 3.2 "other" GPA.

Of course most engineers would say that the engineering curriculum is the toughest...probably because you have 7 hours of homework nightly, the averages on most tests are in the lower 50s, and you find yourself in the computer lab at 3am while everyone else is sleeping.

LOL, the grading scale for my fluids class handed out on the first day was as follows: A 80-100 B 65-80 C 47-65 D 47-35. Good thing he curved the final grades!! It was the hardest C ever for me!

I hear what you're saying about the averages. I was in an E&M engr physics class my sophomore year. The prof would announce with about fifteen minutes left in the 50-minute exam, "Everyone should focus on the 3-4 questions (OUT OF 11 total multiple choice with 10 possible answers each) he/she can get right. You will be about average then!" The average on the second exam was 30.5%, and he freely admitted to having designed the exam so "no one, not even the TAs, could finish it."

 

[XCanadianRagwee]

THat's nothign to having bodies fly in from all over hte place in 15 emergency rooms while you are the only docotr working. you engineering types think you're wonderful since you can show me a flow diagram of blood through cessels as the vessels increase or decrease.

Sorry but people aren't made out of metal yet.

 

[Tamomo]

When will you ever have a practical, day-to-day use for engineering as a practicing physician? When I was a computer science, later biomed EE major, everyone in the engineering dept. told me that I couldn't live without an engineering degree....that I would NEED it for med school or if I didn't get in then I would never get a job. This is all bogus, I personally feel that what an engineer learns is pointless for the practicing physician....I mean when do you see your doctor messing around with a circuit board and motors...you don't because that's not his job. Look...after 4 years of undergrad, you have 4 years of med school then 3-5 years of residency....that's alot of time. During med school and residency when will you have time to use that engineering knowledge?...never. The only time it will ever make a difference is if you want to get an MD/Phd in biomed engr. Why not spend that time learning something you will never have a chance to learn in detail again...like anthropology, history, physics, economics. Becoming a practicing physician means more than just gaining esocteric knowledge that most people don't have a clue about.

What I'm trying to say is that biomed engr. will not really help you in getting into med school or help you as a practicing physician. Don't study it based on how the degree may help you as a doctor because no undergrad degree can do that, only study it if you have a passion for it.

Finally, even though this is anecdotal I know a few of my former classmates who wished they never majored in engineering because of the difficulty of the degree plan...they couldn't keep up a competitive GPA. One had to go overseas and the other had to do the Finch AP course


P.S. This OP keeps posting stuff like this every few weeks.....oh, please help me I have a 36 MCAT but only a 3.6 GPA I'll never get in....boo hooo hoooo. Dude stop being a ****ing ***** and just do it. I didn't have your stats and I got in and so did alot of other people. Everyone is in the same boat and this experience builds character. So stop posting about how your citizenship status or major will keep you out of med. school.

 

[lil pook]

Uh...have any of you that are doubting the diffculty of engineering actually ever taken anything remotely engineering related besides calculus or physics? Dont knock it till ya try it.

 

[klinzou]

Lemme tell anyone that has to say that EE isn't hard. It is the hardest major at almost every school in this country. Granted, I'm not going to tell this to the adcom's, b/c it does sound arrogant and cocky. Rightfully so, but unless they were an EE, they wouldn't understand.

I'm in EE with a 3.2 gpa right now (hopefully going to at least a 3.4 by graduation) and I'm still undecided between EE and medicine. I'm going to hang in and finish the EE degree regardless of whether I choose medicine or not. I fine EE interesting and like the challenge of it as well.

I'm just unsure of how I should break it to the adcom's if/when I choose medicine. I'm not going to have a very good reason why I switched other than "I just decided it wasn't for me". If they choose not beleive me(which they better not) then I guess I'll be stuck as an EE. They should also like the fact that I worked as an engineer for a full year after my sophomore year, so maybe that'll help.

 

[Sonya]

Originally posted by aydinhatemi
I am an Electrical Engineering major (toughest on earth) and I have average GPA (3.54 cum.,3.76 science). I am taking Mcat this april but my practice tests shows 34-35 (who knows what will happen in the real think). Do adcoms treat us differently. Do they consider how hard it is to be an EE. Please share your ideas with be I am very stressed out, when I see bio majors with 4.0 and research. And they are very confident and make me nervous. GOD, I wish I could go back to my freshman year and fix things up. Now I will end up my no-name state medical school (University of K. (somewhere in south, lots of horses and tobacco)) Whatever I wanted to go a top 20 school but I guess my scores are not that good... When ever I go to this website www.mdapplicants.com profiles freaks me out. People with 37 Mcats and still rejected. It does not make sense. There are two ways to explain this. #1 information about profiles are not true since anybody can enter any profile, or #2 these school really want a higher mcat than their published averages. (may be their averages are skewed because of URM's and you might need a much higher score to get in if you are white)..

a 3.76 science GPA will be a VERY strong selling point, they care more about science grade point. however, they also care for "well roundedness". It is very hard for me to say whether they would consider you more like a 3.7 or a 3.5 GPA student, because I do not know people with that much difference.

A 34-35 is EXCELLENT.

Yes, there is a skew, do to URMs and a lot of other factors.
It can also be a different crowd reports to mdapplicants.com

If you did poor fresman year, and showed dramatic improvements, they will like it.

You can always do a research, or a post-bacc, or MS and apply later.
You do NOT need to do a lot of research if that is not of interest to you (but the fact you did EE makes me suspect it may be).

They will like an EE major, because they think it is intimidating. They know it is hard.

Having taking several EE courses (and math beyond differential equations), I would say it is not hard for ME PERSONALLY, compared to my biology and definetly bioengineering courses. But, that is just my personal opinion, because, as long as I have lived to remember I have been good with everything mathematical. For the majority of people, it is very difficult, and the medical schools know that.
For me EE is a guaranteed kick major b*tt huge amount of work, and pretty much guaranteed A/A+.


As I read the other replies, i'm sorry i even opened this topic....
I am getting into no stupid, pointles, arrogant debates about what is "harder". They are very different in many respects, and hard is a very subjective term. You can't compare them.


And to the original applicant, you have a reasonable chance, at say top 30 schools. It is really very hard for me to tell b/c your overall GPA is so different from your science GPA.
Sonya
(PS, if you have any other questions, feel free to e-mail me, [email protected])

 

[Gradient Echo]

Originally posted by Tamomo
When will you ever have a practical, day-to-day use for engineering as a practicing physician?

I could make this critique for all undergrad majors except maybe biology/biochem/chemistry.

When I was a computer science, later biomed EE major, everyone in the engineering dept. told me that I couldn't live without an engineering degree....that I would NEED it for med school or if I didn't get in then I would never get a job. This is all bogus

I agree, its bogus to claim that an engineering degree is something that you "cant live without" as far as med school goes. The people you talked to must have a very inflated sense of self-importance.

I personally feel that what an engineer learns is pointless for the practicing physician....I mean when do you see your doctor messing around with a circuit board and motors...you don't because that's not his job.

Theres no monolithic, uniform description of what a "practicing" physician does. There are many varieties to being a doctor; you cant pigeon hole it and say that engineering is worthless to the field. For some people obviously it will help less (e.g. family practiioner in rural Wyoming) but for others it could definitely help (academic radiation oncologist working on a new radiation technique for brain cancer therapy).

[/quote]Look...after 4 years of undergrad, you have 4 years of med school then 3-5 years of residency....that's alot of time. During med school and residency when will you have time to use that engineering knowledge?...never. [/quote]

Theres more value to an engineering degree THAN JUST the content of the courses. Its also a way of thinking (problem solving) that tends to be unique among the various college majors). Just because you wont be designing circuit boards (actually I do use this quite a bit) does NOT mean that you get no value from having an engineering background in medical school.

The only time it will ever make a difference is if you want to get an MD/Phd in biomed engr. Why not spend that time learning something you will never have a chance to learn in detail again...like anthropology, history, physics, economics. Becoming a practicing physician means more than just gaining esocteric knowledge that most people don't have a clue about.

If you are going to argue that you wont use engineering in medicine, I can make a similar argument about each of the fields you mentioned.

What I'm trying to say is that biomed engr. will not really help you in getting into med school or help you as a practicing physician.

Again, there is no ONE definition of what a practicing physician does, and you are incorrect in your insinuation that engineering background is useful ONLY from a content perspective.

 

[loyen]

While I totally agree that not all enginneers are the most social of people, a quick little anecdote from my personal history:
There are only about 4 or 5 ChemEs that go to med school from my school each year, and I do have to say that they tend to be the most outgoing of the bunch. Most of have a reasonable understanding that being a doctor actually involves speaking to other human beings.

The single chemE I know that DID not get it had trouble communicating with non-digital beings. I can imagine his interview was a hoot.

 

[bobmarley77]

Loyen, I agree. Most of the ChE's in my class were pretty social.

As far as my chem. engineering experience not helping with medicine, I definitely think that the skills I've picked up during my internship will be useful. I had accepted a 3 semester internship at a chemical plant back in my sophomore year. This internship allowed me to work with a diverse group of people: operators, foreman, accountants, maintenance crews, other engineers, etc. I also had a lot of experience working under pressure to meet deadlines, leading meetings & projects, solving critical problems, working with difficult people, etc. Hell, the internship got me 18-20 bucks an hour while in school (beats mimimum wage and student jobs!) and enabled me to get a $55-60K/yr job after school.

Of course, I discovered that I am more passionate about medicine. I've enjoyed/felt better about my clinical volunteering experiences more than the paid engineering positions, but my "real world" experience in chemical engineering field is clearly invaluable!

PS.......I hate how people stereotype engineers. In addition to engineering, I LOVED english (love writing papers), psychology, philosophy, anthropology, and all of my biology related courses. Choosing a major was the toughest thing for me since I am interested in pretty much everything except History.

 

[Tamomo]

Gradient Echo... dude you read too deep into my post.

First, you are an MD/PhD in biomed engineering.....an engineering degree for you or anyone else going into that is indispensable.

Second, I think a bio/biochem/chem degree is also useless for med school, except for some first year med classes that bio majors will have taken. The other majors I mentioned are usually housed in the liberal arts college or humanities or natural sciences; these disciplines usually see knowledge as an end in itself. Unlike engineering which is only concerned with practical, business applications. Everyone must understand that embarking on a degree in any of the engineering programs is meant to produce engineers for the market and research....this is not a bad thing but an important difference. (the same can be said about business majors but that's for another thread....plus business is a joke as everyone knows)

Third, my advisors did as anyone else at any other engineering dept. at any other school would do....they tried to keep students in their dept., it always looks bad to lose students to other depts.
But they did go overboard with their persuasion.

Fourth, you are aboslutely right that no one can pigeon hole what a practicing physician does. BUT the VAST MAJORITY will not need to know engineering at that detail to successfully do their jobs....unlike yourself who needs an intimate knowledge of engineering for your future research.

Fifth, "problem-solving" can be taught at many different levels and with many different degree programs. It is the student's curiosity and hard work that will determine that. I have met some incredibly intelligent and gifted anthropology majors who will contribute immensely to their field and I have met some incompetent engineering majors who coudn't engineer their way out of a locked car.

Sixth, I stated that people should major in engineering if they truly love it; like any other major. This post was meant for the OP who posts stuff like this every so often about how he's screwed b/c he's an engineering major and doesn't have a 4.0 like "all" the other bio majors. He sounds like he messed up by picking engineering instead of something else that would have given him a higher gpa.

 

[stevevilicious]

Engineering and the mathematical sciences are really great majors in developing your problem solving abilities more than other majors IMHO. To the OP: Don't worry to much about your GPA. Adcoms definitely take your major into consideration. In fact, I heard that some adcoms even boost your GPA by extra points (for difficult majors) when ranking everyone's GPA.

 

[Apparition]

Is a computer science degree comparable in difficulty to engineering degrees? Is it even considered a "hard" major?

 

[loyen]

Is a computer science degree comparable in difficulty to engineering degrees? Is it even considered a "hard" major?

I think it depends on the school. My undergrad has computer science in the enginneering dept (where they take mostly the same classes as the computer enginneers) and another "Computer science applications" major which is basically a Bulls*** padding for businness students. They learn where the "enter" key is.

Some schools include comp.sci with enginneering, others in more general science. I think it really matters on the program though.

 

[mellotron]

I've reacted to Tamomo's sentiments on this before, but for some reason I feel differently this time around. And this time I think I mostly agree with him/her just because there's such a "I wanna be pre-med and would give a limb to get into med school. Where should I go, what research should I do, what should my major be, what color should my backpack be?" that I'm afraid the advantages of an engineering education get taken up for the wrong reasons.

As I've said before, if you feel the need to tell your engineer/pre-med stories, then you're better off being a motivational speaker to an engineering club than a bunch of high school pre-med students. So like Tamomo said, go engineering if you love engineering. I mean, notice all the pre-meds asking about ways to skirt calculus requirements... I'd feel real guilty advising someone who would not enjoy engineering on account of adcom's respect for the degree.

However, I do feel the need to take Tamomo to task on the "uselessness" of the degree. Because I could easily argue that 90% of engineers will never even use calculus in their career. And if a situation called for an integral, you'd probably use a well-reasoned average to make the calculation algebraic. The point is, the problem solving process (ie. a structured thought process) is THE most valuable aspect of an engineering education. There just aren't enough refineries and chemical plants for all the ChE's out there to look after distillation columns. Therefore, ChE's MUST be great critical thinkers if they're going to be at all marketable. And the ones whe "can't engineer their way out of a locked car" become drug reps

When I took biology in high school, I memorized everything and hated it. Couldn't find the pattern, didn't understand the mechanisms. When I took biology in college in my 3rd year, I didn't memorize anything. I knew the patterns, I could describe the mechanisms, BECAUSE fluid dynamics, heat transfer and diffusion was a full year's worth of eng. courses that describes gradients of all kinds that exist in industry and living things.

If nothing else, my mission in med school is to minimize memorization in favor of understanding fundamentals AND offer a unique perspective in study groups to those who think differently than me.

 

[latinfridley]

comp sci is a hard major. computer or management info systems or some derivation thereof is not a hard major.
at my school ( UT austin), EE and comp sci are generally regarded as rather difficult majors, compared to other nat. sci or lib art majors. depends on the person though.

 

[An Yong]

Is a computer science degree comparable in difficulty to engineering degrees? Is it even considered a "hard" major?

It really depends on the person, to me I consider CS a very difficult major (probably on par with engineering majors) because of the mathematics involved. Many people have the misconception that CS involves learning to use different languages (C, C++, V-basic, etc.), but this is not really the case. Computer Science is a field that grew out of set theory in mathematics, so the ideas involved in CS can get extremely abstract. My personal belief is that non-CS majors tend to believe that CS is easy because they have taken some introductory course in programming and have imprinted into their minds the idea of what CS is like from that course, but the advanced theoretical CS courses are much more different. I think it takes a real mind to truly understand problems/ideas such as Church-Turing thesis, P-Space, NP-Space, D-Space, etc

As for CS being as "difficult" as engineering degrees, thats really relative to the person. I know a lot of people have suggested to me that engineering is more difficult because they use more mathematics. This is not really the case, CS heavily use mathematics (in fact, I believe some schools have their CS major within the math department), its just a "different" kind of mathematics. Engineers use the quantitative side (diff eq, calculus, etc.). While CS uses the abstract side. My personal belief, is that the abstract mathematics classes are more difficult than the introductory quantitative courses (calc, differential Equations I), mainly because I think its easier to memorize/use a theorem vs. actually have to prove it =P

In sum, it really depends on the person, if you think solving puzzles is fun and can flourish with abstract mathematics (i.e., understanding/constructing math proofs comes easy to you), then CS probably won't seem very difficult.

Hope that helps!

 

[MacGyver]

come on, comp sci does have math but to claim that it has MORE math than engineering is pure bull****.

as a whole, when compared across many colleges and universities, comp sci majors dont use math as much in their courses and they are not expected to have the same math preparation/background as engineering majors.

Maybe you're talking about some special quantitative, theoretical comp sci department; but that situation is not representative of most comp sci majors.

Whether comp sci is easy/hard to engineering majors I'll leave to someone else. But I am stating point of fact that there is no way comp sci majors have as much math background/usage as engineering majors on average.

 

[neofight]

It really depends on which engineering major and which classes are taken. Courses in Electrical tend to be a lot more mathematical than environmental engineering. And how many engineering classes are cross listed with the math department? For computer science, there's Automata, Computational Complexity, Analysis of Algorithms, Numerical Analysis, Computer Graphics, etc..

 

[desi flava]

what about biomedical engineering? is that considered a "good" major? im lookin for a major which involves all the pre med courses plus other health related courses with engineering..and if i dont get into a med school would this major be a good idea as my back up? how are the job opportunities with a BME degree? average salary? i would guess this is a hot field and i hope it doesn't get over packed like comp sci.. i dont wanna be bummin for jobs 5 yrs later

can any1 who's pursuing this degree tell me more about it? anything..from your experience with the courses to research opportunities, etc

thanks

 

[Sonya]

For those who say engineering isn't useful, do you think you biologists alone ever would have made a MRI machine?

Also, my upper division bioeng quantitative physiology classes (modeling physiology, and understanding the physics in biological phenomena), will be very useful, simply because it: forces me to conceptualize and analyze the information, and it gives me a new way of looking at physiology. A lot of your science will be of limited use if you're not doing research, BTW.

Also... maybe p eople LIKE bioE more then anthropology.
I don't think you should major anything just because it's hard. If engineering, or the quantitative nature of engineering interests you, then take an engineering major.


desi flava...

BioE is a good major to take for going into medical school.

It is also a new field, so it can be a lot of different things depending on the school, and on YOU. It is still limited as for being offered as a undergrad major. there is a TON of research in BioE. I personally, have always stuck with biology research that can benefit from engineering tools/understanding of math and physical science.

for instance my undergrad research project was measuring different tensile properties of a particular material. We then adapted this to measuring forces neurons exert in growth. Then from there, we can see the effect of removing certain proteins on the forces. so, it's goal was a biological question, but it was critically important for me to know about Youngs modulus, and other topics in mechanics.

I think you can get a good idea of what is covered in BioEng by looking through department webpages. I went to WashU, this is the BME webpage: www.biomed.wustl.edu
It can describe the kindof research people do much better then i can write here.

As a proffesional Bio Engineer, you c an work in industry, you can become a physician, or you can do academic research. You could mainly be doing biology, or mainly just electrical or mechanical engineering.

For the courses you take, it depends a LOT on the school. WashU had a premedical track in BioE, which required less engineering classes, and allowed a LOT of science related electives, therein, you can fit all the premed.

Salary depends a lot on whether you are in industry or academics.

 

[wgu]

EE is hard but not impossible. There's an EE girl at my school (UM) who only got two A's. The rest of her grades were all A+'s. UM's EE rank is #5. Other engineering majors are also hard but they aren't any harder than physics or chemistry majors.

I see engineering important to medical research. It is also a skill building process rather than a knowledge building process.

 

[SunnyS81]

I am so glad that we don't have a +/- grade system. It would absolutely destroy me. When only 5 people in a lecture get an A, how do you distribute that over the A-, A, and A+?

I hope there is at least one person per department that does well, even in engineering, but the probability that the same person is also going to apply to medical school is pretty low.

 

[bosco]

Originally posted by SunnyS81
I hope there is at least one person per department that does well, even in engineering, but the probability that the same person is also going to apply to medical school is pretty low.

I agree 100%!!!

 

[mosfet]

I disagree with one of the posters that said engineering is only as hard as physics or chemistry or "basketweaving" majors. I recently graduated as an Electrical Engineer from Georgia Tech, and trust me, EE is no walk in the park. For that matter of fact, no engineering major is.
Unfortunately, now I am having to face med school adcoms with a below avg gpa (3.3). The funny thing is, I got A's is almost all my sci classes including Org I & II, but guess what brought my BCPM gpa down. Its my good ole math classes from engineering. So even my BCPM gpa ain't looking too good. I guess that's my fate.

To the original poster, I totally feel your pain man.