Engineering/Science vs Pre-Med. Which is harder?

[PharmacyStudent]

I keep hearing engineering and pre-med students talking about how hard their courses and lives are. So, I am curious to know which one is more difficult.

[bodangles]

Apples and oranges. Hard in different ways.

[intparent]

Both really hard. Maybe engineering is slightly harder because there are more math & science courses. But high grades in the pre-med classes are essential for med school, so that is added pressure.

[eyemgh]

Having done pre-med myself and having a son in engineering, I’d say engineering is harder, substantially. By harder, I don’t mean pressure, I mean required brute horsepower.

I posited this question to my Dad BTW a few months back. He has a unique perspective. He’s an engineer who went back to medical school after 7 years in engineering. In practice, he felt engineering was more challenging. In clinical practice, we need to remember information. Engineers synthesize new information from all their experience. Suffice it to say, they’re both challenging.

[50N40W]

I had a classmate who majored in something like engineering (heavy math/CS) and went to medical school.

I haven’t come across an engineer who majored in bio or another typical premed field.

That said, I had and still have tremendous respect for anyone who chooses a path leading to medical school.

[MYOS1634]

The content of the premed courses is, overall, more “doable”, but being premed doesn’t mean just passing, it means being top 10% in each class, so the leve of mastery required and the pressure that goes with it are higher.
The content of engineering courses is, overall, harder. However, they’re so hard no one cares how high you rank.
Note that premed is not a major. It’s just a set of introductory classes providing a general education as a pre-requisite to learning anything medical. Premeds don’t study anything medical and they need to have a major, which can be anything (Math, English, Music… do very well.)

[rvalover7]

They are both equally as hard but in different ways. I’m pre-med, and I have a brother who is a doctor, and I have two brothers who are engineers. Pre-Med is a track to get you to graduate school while most engineers can get a job right out of undergraduate if they please.

Engineering: The material is more challenging. Some specialties are harder than others. You take mainly science classes, so you have to be good at that.

Pre-Med: THE PRESSURE. The content may be slightly “easier,” but still challenging. You don’t have to be a science major, but you are expected to be the best of the best for medical school. Great GPAs, fantastic MCAT score, ECs, research, etc.

IMO, I think they are equally as hard. I have tremendous respect for both. I considered biomedical engineering, but in the end, I didn’t want to deal with all the upper-level physics classes. Just not my style.

[hannuhylu]

Agreed…with all the posters a above. BSEE or BSME its a piece of paper and done. Rank, school, gpa is mostly irrelevant for “normal” run of the mill entry level engineering jobs. You just need to the paper and have decent interpersonal skills. While harder curriculum no one knows how well you did!

Pre-med its that gpa with the average applicant having a 3.55gpa before applying to med school and the accepted applicants average a 3.7gpa.

That is pressure versus engineering 2.5 or 3.5 who will know after you first job if even then? I agree engineering is harder, but the requirement for success is lower and after 4 years you can get a good job vs pre-med you can do just about nothing if you don’t get into med school.

[AuraObscura]

Quoting a post I made in another thread (http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20455032#Comment_20455032):

@AuraObscura

Two wildly different fields. Moreover, what do you mean “harder”? The question is so vague as to be meaningless.

Do you mean which is more difficult academically? Again, apples and oranges. And do you mean at the undergraduate level, or beyond? At the undergraduate level, like @EdwardKenway said, “premed” is not a major. It’s an intent and describes a set of classes you must take to be eligible for medical school admission. If you’re a premed who is not an engineering major, then engineering is more academically difficult in terms of sheer workload. This is not to say that a premed non-engineer undergraduate has it easy, but engineers have a very rigorous and standardized curriculum. It’s routine for engineering majors to take 20+ credits a semester–far more than any other major. Engineers and premeds both tend to have commitments outside of class time–in the case of premeds, this generally takes the form of research, volunteering, clinical experience, etc. and in the case of engineers, co-ops/internships and projects, and in some cases, research. Engineers tend to have a more project-heavy college experience than non-engineers, which tend to take up more time than the average non-engineer premed’s activities. Of course, if you’re a premed who’s majoring in engineering, things will get very busy.

Do you mean which is academically more difficult in terms of the material? Depends entirely on your strengths and weaknesses. Undergraduate premed requirements tend to involve more memorization than an engineering major’s classes (though this varies from course to course, obviously). Medical school itself is notorious for the sheer volume of material to be digested and is very heavy on memorization. Engineering is all applied math. If you’re poor at synthesizing large volumes of information but good at math, then medicine might be more difficult. If you’re poor at math but good at memorizing lots of information, engineering might be more difficult. If you’re poor at both, then both will be difficult. Also keep in mind that engineering majors tend to have lower GPAs than any other major, which is due to the difficulty of the coursework.

Do you mean in terms of the physical and psychological toll the education takes upon the student? Almost certainly medicine. The long hours, particularly as a resident, and the stressful nature of the work, not to mention the length of the training period (which can be considerably longer for some specialties than others) and relatively low pay during said training period, almost surely take a greater physical/psychological toll than anything most engineers go through.

Do you mean in terms of getting a job? As long as you get a US MD or DO, you are virtually guaranteed to find a job in medicine somewhere (in the US). However, the unemployment rate is also extremely low among engineers.