<p>I'm a freshmen at Stony Brook University. I'm currently a bme major. Unfortunately I later discovered that there aren't many jobs available in this field. That scared me. I then learned that often time it's better to major in some other form of engineering and then do bme for graduate school. Unfortunately I was once course behind b/c at my orientation I wasn't informed that I had to take chem. I took Calc, sociology, physics A, and bme100. I got an A, C+, C-, and a B-, respectively. I know my gpa isnt great. I attribute that to poor/lazy study habits. I often felt that last minute cramming worked for me. I took a very poor physics class in HS so in college physics was foreign to me. I wasnt entirely committed and I know that was wrong. I gave it a try b/c I like math and science. I put in effort but I didnt put in my best efforts. I then registered for calc2, physics B, logic and critical reasoning, chem and a writing course. Unfortunately I was deregistered from physics b/c I need a C or higher in the previous level to enter physics b. So, I'm one semester behind in chem and 2 in physics, terrible start. Idk if I'll continue w/ bme or engineering at all. I heard bme at undergrad level is useless and that others are better but I'm basically semester behind in engineering and I wanna graduate in four years. So, I considered majoring in Applied Math b/c math comes naturally to me and I enjoy it. My GPA'll definitely go up. I've considered becoming an actuary and I learned that they make good money, even more than engineers do. I'm torn. Please help .</p>
<p>One of the reasons why applied math (including some statistics and computer science) is a great major is because it is broad and get you into many areas. Since you are not as specialized (as BME is), you can “taste” a few professional disciplines before deciding on which career to to choose.</p>
<p>For instance, you could add electives within your applied math program to prepare you for at least 2 industry areas (maybe more). As an applied math undergrad, I also selected as electives:</p>
<p>For a CS/Software career: operating systems, computer networks, database systems, computational complexity and numerical analysis 1 & 2</p>
<p>For a operations research career: mathematical programming (basically a linear programming/simplex course), computational linear algebra, statistics</p>
<p>The O.R. electives ended up helping me in the long run because I ended up getting a graduate systems engineering degree as well as doing actual systems engineering work at various times in my career ALTHOUGH the bulk of my work experience has been one of a software engineer.</p>