BME vs MechE - tentatively pre med

Hi! I’ll be a freshman engineering student next year, tentatively pre med. After undergrad, I’ll join the peace corps for two years, work for a little while, and then head to grad school, either med school or for an engineering masters or PhD. I’m trying to decide between an undergrad major in BME and Mech E. Advice would be appreciated.

BME:
Pros:
-only highly ranked engineering program at my university (WashU)
-covers lots of bases
-great if med school is in the future
-research is fascinating
-lots of GREAT resources in WashU’s med school

Cons:
-not in-depth enough for an interesting job before grad school
-not as much math as mech E
-too specialized for wide job prospects
-I don’t really know how much I like pure bio

Mech E:
Pros:
-broader job prospects, room for career changes (if med school is not in my future)
-can do a lot of the more interesting things BMEs can do, like prosthetics
-lots of room for creativity
-will be taking bio classes anyways for premed, so I’ll still have the education for a BME job/grad program.
-I like to build things

Cons:
-WashU’s program isn’t as great
-not as medical, maybe not great if I do end up at med school
-not as many resources as BME at WashU

I’m not going to major in both because I’d like to take a second humanities major as well. If I do Mech E, I’ll probably minor in Aerospace or Robotics. If I do BME, I’ll probably minor in Robotics or Mech E. I’d like to make a decision before I register for classes (June 13-15) so that I’ll be able to fit in two majors and maybe a minor.

Thanks in advance!

I’m of the opinion that engineering is not a wise pre-med major. It’s too difficult to get good grades and you learn a LOT of stuff that will never be germane to your career. That said, if you do survive, engineers make very good medical students.

You also have to know that in any engineering program where you can double major and minor, your engineering background will be weaker. Every class you take in your second major and minor will replace deeper work that you could have done in a single major. If you aren’t planning on being an engineer, that’s not an issue. If you are, you might be at a disadvantage when employers compare transcripts between candidates.

My daughter is studying BME, but her goal all along has been pursuing a PhD in bioengineering. Her concentration is biomechanics and many of her friends who want to go straight to work with the same BME concentration are double majoring in MechE. There is a lot of overlap.

Also if you choose BME and want to go premed or even PhD you will have to be able to fit in additional tough courses like Organic Chemistry which isn’t required by some BME programs. It is a prerequisite for many PhD programs that my daughter is looking at. That only leaves so much time for other minors.

D is doing CS with premed which doesn’t leave any room in her schedule to play. She will automatically get a math major because of all the math requirement for CS. She was never interested in BME, and says it takes more credit hours to graduate than CS.

What you can’t always take for granted is the class scheduling. She is still on Waitlist for org chem for next year. That is also something to think about.

D has a friend who is ME who wants to graduate in 3 years with summer classes. I also agree no point of getting two majors in engineering.

I also wouldn’t consider too much of engineering ranking for undergraduate. As long as you graduate from a reputable school with good grades and interview well, you should be OK! Amazon is paying you the same pay whether you are from Stanford or U of Pittsburgh.

Can you do BioMed with a MechE concentration?

I would think Biomed would have more ovelap in the pre-med courses…you have to take Chem, Physics, Calc as an engineer, but Bio and Org Chem for pre-med.

At what college does the CS major have about 8 semesters of junior/senior level math courses including ones like real analysis, abstract algebra, complex analysis, etc. that are typically required for math majors?

BME is a smattering of physiology, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering, and I don’t see how that can help you as a doctor. If you want to be an orthodontist, thats the one speciality where mechanical engineering is helpful. If you are leaning more towards engineering as a career, keep your options open with mechanical engineering. (over BME) Mechanical engineers can work in the medical device industry, auto industry, the aerospace industry, the electronics industry, and the energy industry with a mechanical engineering degree. And if you take a pass O chem,math, physics and other premed requirements, you can still become a doctor. However to get admitted to medical school, you will need to have clinical medical experiences in the summer. To get a job as an engineer, you need to have summer engineering jobs. While you can delay this decision for a year, or two, beyond that, it starts to get harder to get prepared for medical school. You can and should take at least one gap year to get ready for the MCAT exam and to get more clinical, research, but if you want an MD/PhD, you will need to sign up for Medical related summer research work and not clinical experiences. So even in medicine, students branch early, towards clinical or research !

However, the word on the street is medical school now like mathematics majors, for what thats worth. I think Wash U is strong in all the engineering fields, so you don’t have to pick a major by its rank at Wash U in particular. They have a 3-2 engineering program with about 20 LACS so there will be a lot of motivated LAC kids in your upper level classes.

Med schools care about-- your interview, your MCAT score, your summer jobs and gap year jobs and your recommendations as well as grades in the classes they care about which are physics, chemistry, math etc . Your major is less important than all of that.

Probably many students cannot decide between engineering and pre-med and try to do both, even though biomedical engineering is not great for getting engineering jobs with a bachelor’s degree, because trying to cram in pre-med courses with most other kinds of engineering is difficult.

I think my daughter did choose biomedical engineering in part because she wanted to pursue engineering research while also keeping the option open to try for the MD/PhD route if that seemed most appropriate for her once she had academic experience. She has never wanted to treat patients but rather is interested in biomedical research that involves engineering, particularly at the tissue level. Last summer while participating in an REU at a university other than her own where she would love to attend graduate school, she met with the PI for her lab to discuss pros and cons of MD/PhD versus straight PhD, and was told that there was no real advantage of going the MD/PhD route given her specific interests in research. However, if she wanted to treat patients, that would be different. She’s managed to do very well in her engineering and non-engineering courses, so taking BME as pre-med would not be a disadvantage for her. She will be applying for PhD programs during the next school year.