<p>I intend to go to UMD - College Park to study either bio(medical)engineering or chemical engineering. I'm not decided yet on if I want to go to med school after or not which is why I'm majoring in engineering. I know it will be difficult but provided I could keep my gpa high, would either of these majors be good for med school or would they prepare me enough/make me competitive? If so which of these would be better for medschool. They both fascinate me. I appreciate any help or insight! </p>
<p>It doesn’t matter as long as you keep your grades up and meet all the prerequisite for the medical schools you want to apply to. My guess is that BME should check more of those off of the list, but it’s more important to pick the one that interests you most knowing that with either degree you’ll need additional classes to meet prereqs. </p>
<p>I’d suggest you figure out what you really want to do. Either way, you’re going to want to keep your GPA high but why put yourself through such a hard undergrad that could very well lower your likely hood of getting into med school if being a doctor is really want you want. </p>
<p>BME undergrads are not viewed well because BME is such a general field. BME is recommended more as a specialization in grad school than an undergrad. If you want to do BME you should do either mech, Electrical, Chem engineering, or even physics,biology, or chemistry. </p>
<p>If you want to be a doctor though (MD) go for a general biology degree, taking all the biology and anatomy courses along with gen chem and organic. Doing an engineering degree for med school is just so not worth it, especially if you end wanting to be an MD, you’re going to have to take all those extra biology and anatomy classes. </p>
<p>Choose a path and go with it</p>
<p>As someone in a BME program, let me tell you, I regret it, but thats because I always wanted to go into medicine from the start.
I am premed. I want to be a dental surgeon and work with implatology. Thats it. </p>
<p>BME seemed like a good solid back up plan. Well,… I’m in the middle of my 3rd year (loathed the last 3) and BME or CE, or any engineering in general have exactly ZERO to do with medicine. My friends take classes that will prepare them for the MCATs and med school like A&P, or histology, or genetics… at the very least they are actually doing things that have something to do with human bodies.
Schools will sell you on the “problem solving capabilities” of engineering grads, but the reality is if you look at the numbers of successful med school applicants who were BME or something, you’ll see that someone focused on biology or chemistry is way more likely to get in. Sure, history and english majors get in all the time, but they usually have something that sets them apart or phenomenal GPA’s. Very few engineering students have those GPA’s or healthcare backgrounds that you’re competing with. </p>
<p>I am only just now, (junior year) having advisors even consider letting me take electives that have ANYTHING to do with medicine. I have been premed the whole time.
I transferred from a community college with a lot of health science type classes, so my advisors are literally stuck because things like histology, or pharmacology have zero to do with engineering so they don’t want to let me do them because most of engineerings electives are either more math, or more engineering, regardless to if you’re BME/premed or not. </p>
<p>Mean while, I look at the work my friends do preparing for med school later down the line and I know I am not prepared (I’ve been in fields that have nothing to do with medicine). </p>
<p>Actually, it’s a bit of a joke because every semester my friends ask me, “what are you doing this semester towards your premed,” and I have to tell them time and time again, NOTHING… I’ll be taking data structures… or another circuits class, or something equally as ridiculous like yet another math class… </p>
<p>Bio-med engineering has very little to do with biology, or medicine. It’s just Mech, Elec, and Chem all rolled into some hybrid degree.
As a conduit to medicine, it’s a pretty lousy one…</p>
<p>Sorry, but I’m in it and thought I’d pass it along.</p>
<p>The OP mentioned that he wasn’t sure whether he wants to pursue medicine or not. If this is the case, then I’d recommend taking classes in the other fields he is considering. After getting some experience, in those fields he can decide in what field he’d like to work after graduating, as well as what field to major in. Even if he does decide that he’d like to work in medicine, it’s good to have a backup plan since admission to medical school is by no means certain.</p>
<p>I was in a similar position when in college. Upon entering college, I had originally planned to major in an engineering field. During my first semester, I took the same chemistry class as a lot of the pre-med students. I found chemistry really interesting and did quite well, which led to me continuing with the pre-med track, so I was simultaneously pursuing engineering and pre-med, not certain which field I’d like to pursue as career. I didn’t find the combination as difficult as many make it out to be, and there was a good amount of overlap, including both tracks requiring courses in math, physics, and basic chem. During my second year, I started taking biology. I found parts of biology fascinating, such as neurobiology and behavioral neuroscience, but I found the majority quite dull, particularly when the focus was rote memorization of topics that did not interest me. At the same time I started taking engineering courses. I really loved my intro to electrical engineering and intro CS classes. The logical purity and deterministic nature really fit with my personality, as well as my talents. I decided I’d prefer to work in engineering over medicine, so I entered a related engineering grad program (Stanford allows students to simultaneously pursue a BS and MS degree through their coterminal masters program), and did not apply to medical schools. I used the unrelated pre-med courses I had taken as electives towards my engineering (and business) degrees, so there was no delay in graduation. Instead I graduated early.</p>
<p>Today I work in an engineering and programming related field, and most days, I really enjoy my work. I’m quite satisfied with my decision to choose engineering over medicine in college, and expect I’d enjoy my days much less, if I was working in medicine. I’ve also had the opportunity to start a successful internet company, which was supported by my engineering and business degrees in college. I would probably not have had this opportunity and would have been in a much worse position, if I had majored in something that easily fulfilled the pre-med requirements, but didn’t really interest me, such as biology, then decided medicine wasn’t for me at some point later on.</p>