<p>Hi, i am a 2nd year mechanical engineering major and have just gotten a new interest in studying medicine as well. I was wondering how common it is to satisfy this combination of engineering major and pre-med requirements. The reason why i ask is that it is barely possible for me to take all the pre-med courses on top of my already hectic eng. schedule. Anyone have a similiar experience? , or good advice?? Thanks a lot, waterlog</p>
<p>Very difficult. I certainly wouldn't recommend doing engineering and premed.</p>
<p>I would agree with norcalguy and say that unless you have a compelling reason to do both, you probably shouldn't. If you really want to go to med-school, then you should choose a major that will maximize your chances of getting into med-school, which usually means a major in which you will have a good chance of getting top grades. Med-schools generally don't care about the difficulty of your major, they just want to see top grades. So unless you are a mechanical wizard, you are going to find yourself greatly handicapped in the med-school application race.</p>
<p>I agree with the consensus here. Are you really serious about med, or is this just impulsive?</p>
<p>this is not entirely impulsive, i have had an interest since high school. I am just trying to keep my options open as far as post-bachelors goals. I thought it would be nice to apply to med-school, and graduate engineering simultaneously, and choose from there. I am gonna stick with engineering as it is my main interest, i just thought that satisfying pre-med classes wouldnt be too hard. am i wrong? I believe that i need only one year of organic chemistry left to take. i have already had all the other requirements met just from my classes through engineering.</p>
<p>Being premed is about more than just taking the classes. I don't know how good your GPA is currently but surely there's an easier major out there for you. You are going to have to devote significant time in your junior year to study for the MCAT. You make it sound like you already have your hands full with your engineering classes. Then there are the extracirriculars (research, community service, etc.).</p>
<p>it is far too late for me to switch majors, i am definetely doing mechanical engineering. I figured I would just take "pre-med" courses over the summers at my university, take the MCATS next february, and judge from my scores whether or not to continue my pursuit. Admittedly, this is tough!! I will be very busy this summer with organic chemistry (i heard it was hard!) and a couple more bio/physiology classes next year. My gpa is pretty solid as of right now, 3.86. It would be neat to keep in touch with you guys and follow my adventure.... haha. i am sure this has been done before, engineering and pre-med. maybe i am not alone. hey norcalguy, where you from? I am from the sacramento/chico area.</p>
<p>Since the MCAT is only offered in April and August, you'll have an extra two months:)</p>
<p>Hopefully you'll find the time during the school year to prep for the MCAT's. I've heard that it will take 6 months. I'm planning on taking the MCAT this August which means I will have to spend all summer studying. Organic chem is tough but I think it's reputation sometimes gets blown out of proportion.</p>
<p>I used to live in Cupertino but currently I live in Santa Clara.</p>
<p>look if you are really interested and motivated take the MCATs and see how you do...after that you can decide your path from there</p>
<p>I'm not sure why everyone is counseling against you taking your ME degree and trying for medical school. There are more and more people choosing engineering as their premed degree. Many unversities offer Biomedical Engineering BS programs that guarantee admission into med school. Of course, there are required ACT/SAT scores and GPAs to get into these programs but still..it is certainly not unheard of for an engineering major to apply to medical school. </p>
<p>Because the format of the MCAT is quite similar to the format of engineering course exams and tests, engineering majors tend to excel on the MCAT. </p>
<p>Also, you have probably completed most of the premed requirements as an engineering major. Many schools require Physics/Chem/OChem as part of the engineering requirements. If this is the case for you, then all that is left is the 2 Biology classes and labs. </p>
<p>Oh, and med school admissions committees will notice your high GPA in what is understood to be a difficult major. That BS in ME may actually help you. </p>
<p>I had friends with bachelor's in engineering, so-so GPAs (~3.5) and average MCAT scores go on to medical school. </p>
<p>What you have going for you that many people do not is that your fall-back career as a mechanical engineer would be both lucrative and rewarding. </p>
<p>Good Luck!!</p>
<p>Look, first off, nobody ever said that it was unheard of for engineers to apply to medical school. It happens all the time.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the point is that the 2 generally don't fit well together. As I have pointed out numerous times on CC, engineering is a very difficult road to take if you want to get into medical school. The cold reality of med-school admissions is that it is very numbers-oriented, meaning that it is highly GPA oriented. Engineering students have a very difficult time presenting the high GPA's that the med-school adcoms want. </p>
<p>Nor do the med-school adcoms seem to care very much about the fact that certain majors are more difficult than others. Calkidd and other people here on CC can attest to this, and in fact, Calkidd wrote an excellent polemic about this in the old CC site. Basically, the unfortunate reality is that med-school admissions is something of a game Med-school adcoms want to see high numbers (GPA and MCAT) and don't really care very much about how you get them, as long as you get them. Can engineers get into med-school? Of course they can, and they do. But that's not the point. The point is that it's harder for them to do it, principally because of the difficulty of their curricula. </p>
<p>You pointed it out yourself - you knew people who had 3.5's in engineering who got into med-school. Yet, that's the point. It's far more difficult to get a 3.5 in engineering than it is in most other majors. I would venture to say that those guys who got 3.5's in engineering would have gotten 3.9's in something else, and would then have been competitive for not just any med-schools, but also for the very best med-schools. So I would argue that by choosing med-school, those guys ended up in worse medical-schools than if they had chosen an easier major. </p>
<p>Again, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I think that we can all agree that arguably the most difficult school in the country, in terms of grading and coursework, is MIT. So you would think that med-school adcoms would know that MIT premeds have undergone a shockingly difficult schedule and curriculum, and would therefore compensate accordingly - i.e., they would know that a certain GPA coming out of MIT is equivalent to a significantly higher GPA coming out of somewhere else. Yet look at the premeds from MIT who actually got accepted into med-school. Look at their stats, and especially their GPA's . Their seems to be no evidence that attending a difficult school is in any way compensated for by the med-school adcoms.</p>
<p>Holy cow! MIT has a 74% acceptance rate. That's 21% higher than the national average!! I wonder what they are doing to get so many of their students accepted? The accepted GPA and MCAT scores for those who matriculated is higher than the national average, too. Dang, you also have a higher chance of performing exceedingly well on the MCAT if you go to MIT. I didn't realize that going to a particular school could increase one's chance for med school so much. Thanks for the link Sakky!</p>
<p>As for waterlog's dilemma, here's another option....if you don't want to try to cram all the prereqs in right now you could finish the ME and then do a post-bacc premed program. Your best bet would be to talk to the pre-med advisor at your school.</p>
<p>Oh come on. I think we both know what is really going on here.</p>
<p>Case in point. Princeton's premed acceptance rate is about roughly 90%. Yet the fact is, MIT and Princeton are about as equivalently difficult to get into. So why is MIT's premed admit rate significantly below that of Princeton? Is it because MIT students are stupid compared to Princeton students? </p>
<p>And obviously MIT students have a better chance than the national students of getting into med-school. After all, MIT is supposed to be one of the best schools in the world so MIT is SUPPOSED to be able to get a higher than average percentage of students into med-school, if nothing more than the simple fact that MIT admits only tremendously high achieving people anyway, and these people are going to enjoy a higher rate of success no matter what. After all, think about how scandalous it would be if MIT premeds got into med-school at the same rate as the national average. Then what would be the point of going to MIT at all, if by doing so, you are no better than the average premed nationwide? The whole point of going to a top school is that it's SUPPOSED to give you an advantage.</p>
<p>The real question is whether MIT students enjoy the same sort of premed success as do people who go to equivalent schools. Unfortunately the answer seems to be 'no'. Again, case in point - MIT is indisputably just as difficult to get into as HYPS, yet HYPS premeds get into med-school at a significantly higher rate than do MIT premeds do. Why is that? Is it that those MIT students are just stupid compared to the HYPS students?</p>
<p>I dont think the difference in med school admissions rate is an anti MIT bias, or GPA driven. It is more complex. </p>
<p>Please dont flame me for what I am about to say, this is NOT a criticism of engineering as a field or engineers as people. It is a description of the way many people at medical schools think of engineering.</p>
<p>MIT turns out lots of engineers. It would be interesting to know whether Princeton engineering majors do better than MIT engineers in med school admissions. A large portion of Princeton med school applicants major in something other than engineering- biology, psychology, history, etc. Med schools like these people more than they like engineers. Therefore, Princeton may do better than MIT because of the mix of applicants, not because the grades are higher.</p>
<p>Sticking with grades and MCATs for just a moment before getting to the real issue, did you know that the verbal and writing portions seem to predict clinical performance better than do grades or MCATs in the sciences? </p>
<p>You have to understand that lay people view medicine as science work, but compared with engineering, it is really people work.</p>
<p>The problem is not that engineers have low GPAs, the problem is that many people in med school think the engineering experience (endless hours alone in the library grinding out problem sets) is a poor background for a doctor. They worry that people who would put up with 4 years of that may be insufficiently people-oriented to practice clinical medicine. They are much more comfortable with applicants who appear to be comfortable with people. Do they do extracurricular that involve a lot of personal contact? Most service jobs an undergraduate can get would have this characteristic, while working in an engineering lab would not. At least humanities and social science majors have spent a large portion of their time thinking about how people behave and why. Even bio, biochem, and other science majors usually have time to study other subjects. Engineering curricula tend to bury students in engineering courses and leave little time for much else.</p>
<p>Engineers know lots of science, true, but it is not particularly useful science for medicine. I suspect that a large portion of the MIT entering class has all the science background they need for medical school. For a science major, it is not much. I suspect that nearly the entire entering class knows enough math and physics to go to medical school before they set foot on the MIT campus. All you need is one year of calculus, at a level way below the MIT standard; and one year of physics, again nowhere close to the rigor of MIT courses. Many people would argue that even these requirements for admission exceed what is needed to practice. The science one learns in medical school is much more descriptive and empirical than the technical areas in which MIT students excel. The rote memorization of medical school science courses is worlds away from the analytical skills developed in an engineering curriculum. </p>
<p>Medical schools do not have any trouble at all finding people who can memorize the material they need to pass their science courses. Most people who apply are quite capable of this. So a super-high science GPA does not really matter. People rarely fail because they cannot do the science. No one ever fails because they cannot do the math, because there is no math. The level of physics, mathematics, and chemistry typical of MIT graduates is far beyond what is required. Medical schools do not have any trouble at all finding people who will work hard, there are lots of such people. The challenge for medical schools is to find people who are good at the other things needed to be a good doctor. Doctors must work well in groups- this is unavoidable in medicine, and a shortcoming of many people who struggle. Doctors must be independent and they must teach themselves for the rest of their lives once they finish training. Someone whose entire college career was spent learning ever more esoteric theories and technical methods, alone, and who had little reason to work closely either with colleagues or to serve others, is not really ready for medical school. Someone whose experience was dominated by learning the equations and problems presented to them in classes and texts, and never had to deal with the messier problems of people in their lives is not ready for medical school </p>
<p>Engineers also tend to do worse than their grades would predict in the clinical parts of medical school, perhaps for the reasons above.</p>
<p>In short, if you really like engineering, there is an excellent chance that you will not like medicine. Med schools know this, and I suspect this is the reason they look hard at engineers who apply, and turn down many whose grades and test scores would suggest that they are qualified. </p>
<p>So I would agree with Sakky that, if you are pretty sure you want to go into medicine, you probably should not major in engineering, but the GPA issue is secondary.</p>
<p>"Their seems to be no evidence that attending a difficult school is in any way compensated for by the med-school adcoms."</p>
<p>I am sure you are right. There is good evidence that, if you want to predict medical school grades, and you have the applicatns MCAT's and GPA, there is no need to also factor in the selectivity of the undergraduate school. In otherwords, whatever benefit the student got from going to MIT, instead of some lesser school, is fully reflected, FOR THE PURPOSES OF PREDICTING MEDICAL SCHOOL GRADES, in the MCAT score. This does not mean there may not be lots of other reasons to prefer MIT over some other place. It just means that, in terms of likely sucess in medical school, the MIT background is no better than any other, at an equivalent MCAT level. In fact, MCAT predicts med school grades better than do undergraduate GPA's.</p>
<p>I'm doing Nursing as my PreMed. I suggest it to everyone cause you cant go wrong with it.</p>
<p>That might be risky. Although medical schools like people who have worked as nurses, because they know these individuals really understand what it means to be a doctor, trying to go directly from undergraduate nursing to medical school could be tough. Traditionally nursing programs have been a lot less rigorous than the "standard" premed sequences. So schools may worry whether you have the academic ability to do the work in med school. There are also historic biases against nursing ("a woman's job", "not intellectually respectable") that may be fading, but have hardly disappeared. </p>
<p>It is sort of the opposite of engineering. Ample evidence of people orientation, but questions about strength of science background. The same comments would apply to getting a degree in social work.</p>
<p>Afan, I think we are getting to some grey areas and I think you would admit, as well as I would, that there is no way to prove either of our positions conclusively. </p>
<p>However, what I would point to is that the real issue is 'potential' vs. static results. You assert that engineers may be bad doctors because they haven't honed their people skills. I would counter-assert that they haven't honed their people skills because they haven't had a chance to do so - but once given that chance, they would do it. So the question is, do you want to admit people based on potential, or do you want to admit people based on static results? </p>
<p>I would also add in that people skills are not the only factor at play. I think we would all agree, as would every medical student and every doctor out there, that one of the key aspects to being a good doctor, is simple hard work and stamina. It takes a lot of hard work and a lot of physical stamina to survive medical school and to work the hours that doctors work. And let's face it - engineering is harder work than other majors. There are a lot of majors out there where people can get high grades for doing almost nothing. I am not going to name those majors at this time, but we all know what they are. And to be perfectly frank, there are a lot of studentse in those majors who are getting strong grades but who are just plain lazy - and they are lazy because, quite honestly, they don't have to work hard to get top grades in those majors. </p>
<p>Hence, I see that you have made a generalization that engineers don't have people skills, relatively speaking. I would make a countergeneralization that a lot of liberal arts majors, particularly in those majors that shall remain unnamed, are relatively lazy. So the question is do you want a doctor who is hard-working, but has weak people skills, or do you want one that does have people skills, but doesn't want to work hard? You be the judge. </p>
<p>Hence, I would agree with what you said in the 8th paragraph of post #14 - doctors need more than just memorization/science skills. And in particular, one of the most important things they need, and perhaps the most important thing they need, is a work ethic - basically, the will to work hard. I would assert that, and I think there would be little disagreement against the notion that, engineering students work harder and therefore have a better-developed work ethic than liberal arts students. In fact, I see that you even alluded to this fact yourself in post #17 when you stated that nursing programs are a lot less rigorous than the standard 'premed' sequence - which means that you implicitly agree that rigor is important, if for nothing else because it serves as a proxy for your work ethic.</p>
<p>The use of med school acceptance rates as a measure of the undergraduate school is faulty in that it is so easily manipulated. I think we would largely agree that the stats used by US News to determine the "Best" colleges in the US are equally suspect because you can choose to attract an extremely large applicant pool (promise of scholarships, elitism, mailings, junkets for school counselors), utilize the Tuft's formula to accept only the middel group that will actually matriculate, and reject the remaining 90%. Because you are so selective, US News will declare you one of the "Best".</p>
<p>Manipulating the med school accept rate is much easier because you already have your applicant pool on site. Persuade any marginal students from making a med school application (or prevent it by witholding reqs) and your yield of acceptees will rise. Frankly, if the health advisory panels were actually doing their jobs you should be seeing 90% med school acceptance rates with the others directed to other careers.</p>
<p>Can you double dip and be both an Engineer and MD? Of course. It has been done. Is it likely to be a majority result? No. </p>
<p>Without knowing everything about you and the adcoms that will review you, the odds say you will be one of the very smart people that fall in the 50% of applicants that don't get one of the 16,400 slots.</p>
<p>gizmo9187 I would not try to predict the admissions chances of someone I have never met. Like admissions to selective colleges, there is a lot of chance involved, as well as the standard stuff of perparing the application, recommendations etc. Let's not try to discourage people who want to be doctors.</p>
<p>Sakky, I was afraid I would be misinterpreted, and apparently I was. I am not saying that engineers have bad people skills. Just like liberal arts majors, they naturally have a range, and some are great. I was saying that many people in med school stereotype engineers as lacking these skills, and being more interested in science than people. They also worry that people who are willing to undergo the isolation of being an engineering student are not as people oriented as those who could never consider a major that required so much studying, at the expense of the rest of college life. There is a concern that the experience of being an engineering student itself reinforces these issues. </p>
<p>Although there are certainly lots of lazy people in college, I doubt many of them want to go to medical school. It is known to be a long hard road, not likely to be appealing to those who are afraid of work. Once admitted, people rarely drop out of medical school, so the schools manage to admit people who will do the work, even if they did not have to work like engineers in college.</p>
<p>I am not criticizing engineers, thank god for them! The practice of medicine would be impossible without the contributions they make. It is just that learning huge amounts of hard science, at great personal expense, is not necessarily the best way to prepare for medical school. If I were advising someone on choosing a major for premedical study, I would tell them to take somewhat more science than the minimum (but to focus on cell biology, molecular biology and biochemistry, not math, physics or engineering), major in something they like, and get involved in extra curriculars that have them meeting and working with lots of people, preferably people in need. If engineering is the thing they like, then consider majoring in it, but recognize that the view from medical school may not be entirely positive.</p>