Engineering Pre Med

[BionicMan]

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I am a sophomore Biomedical Engineering student at a Texas University and I am getting stressed out about extracurricular activities. How am I supposed to find the time to make A's in engineering classes AND do the 100's of hours of volunteering, shadowing, leading, participating, tutoring, etc.? Not to mention that by the end of my 4-year degree I'll have 160 credit hours just to finish my major + the premed requirements.

Currently I'm not involved in much EC besides intramurals and hospital volunteering.

I'll be honest. We all know that grades and mcat really do come first, and then everything else is secondary, just to round you out. I really do want to be more involved, but is it worth the blow to my grades?

If there are any other engineering pre-meds out there who have a better handle on this, please help a brother out.

 

[loveoforganic]

Engineering is rough. If you feel the need to stick to that major, you might just need to consider taking a year off before applying. Get a job, get a volunteer position, shadow some docs. Whatever you do, DON'T. BLOW. YOUR. GPA. I would argue GPA is the single hardest thing to repair.

 

[harvman11]

I'm a BME and Biology double major, and yeah it's rough doing engineering and other stuff but you just have to make the time. Definitely don't let your grades slip just for ECs. Here's a few tips that might help you out:

1) You don't need to volunteer that much. If you do 2 hours a week, every week, for 2 years, you'll have about 200 hours. I'm not sure what the average pre-med has, but I had just started volunteering when I applied and got in a few top places (don't follow my example there... I'm just lucky I applied MD/PhD, where it's less important)

2) You don't need 10,000 activities. Think of it this way, there's a total of 15 possible things you can put on your AMCAS application. This includes hobbies, awards, volunteering, research, accomplishments (publications, presentations, etc.), or anything else that would be classified as an "EC". Pick a handful of activities you enjoy and focus on them, and by focus I mean effort, not necessarily more time. If you do pick up some ECs, hobbies work great. One of my ECs was that I play in competitive video game tournaments... not everything has to be about medicine, service, and leadership, be yourself too.

3) Don't take on more than you can do, and if you do, let some stuff drop. If you have extra time, pick up more stuff. I was originally working in my lab about 8 hours a week, but the past couple of semesters I picked it up to about 15 hours since classes were getting easier.

4) Honestly, you shouldn't be THAT stressed out by engineering classes alone. Yes, they're more work than most other majors, but it probably has more to do with your time management. I fail immensely in that area (hence posting this at 3:30 am on a Saturday night while procrastinating on something due tomorrow), but you should at least make an attempt to plan and get your classwork done in a reasonable time frame.

5) Long way away still, but ace your MCAT. It can make up for an average GPA (though not a bad GPA), so make sure you give yourself adequate time to study, etc.

 

[Catalystik]

Don't ever let activities compromise your GPA. You can get the expected experiences later, but repairing a poor GPA takes more time and expense.

That said, I am given to understand that the Texas system is different than the AMCAS system (for Texas residents). Having longevity of clinical experience is the most important in Texas, and you're already involved in that. The shadowing, leadership, teaching, and research (except maybe for UTSW) are frosting on the cake if you have them, not expectations as they would be if you applied to Baylor through AMCAS.

You have a more difficult major than most applicants, but you won't be given credit for that, which sucks. Keeping your GPA up is your only priority. The rest can come later, if you need them for AMCAS schools or to help yourself stand out in Texas.

 

[J ROD]

Protect your GPA at all cost. "Golden Rule"

Mainly, you will need clinical volunteering and shadowing. You already on the hospital volunteering. And, shadowing you can get during breaks in chunks. Try to get around 50-60 hrs over 2-3 different specialties.

Also, you can tutor every now and then by just signing up and being on a list. Probably will not have to do it much and it will look good.

Leadership, see if you can find a small club that does not do much and get an officer postions in name only so you will not have to do anything.

I would not worry about research unless you really like it.

Lastly, all the engin majors I know have done really well on the MCAT 33+

 

[Morsetlis]

You could apply in senior instead of junior year. That gives you an extra year to plan out ECs.