<p>I know this is probably a common question but i still cant find an answer that really helps me. My entire life i have loved cars and i would like to take a job in automotive design and the aerodynamics of cars. However, since my freshman year of highschool, ive taken an interest in Neuroscience. Mostly because im just intrigued with how the brain functions. But i also have no interest in going to med school. Im told this time (junior year of highschool) is crucial for deciding which path to choose, since they are completely different. Can someone please explain to me the opportunities that lie for both job choices + the colleges that are best for each + overall which path is recommended. Any input is highly appreciated</p>
<p>Im told this time (junior year of highschool) is crucial for deciding which path to choose, since they are completely different</p>
<p>Uh, no. Junior year in high school is not a crucial time for this decision.</p>
<p>Google around and you will find some ways of combining your interests, such as this -
[USC</a> Neuroscience: Research: Computational Neuroscience and Neural Engineering](<a href=“http://www.usc.edu/programs/neuroscience/research/neural.html]USC”>http://www.usc.edu/programs/neuroscience/research/neural.html)
[Program</a> in Neuroscience](<a href=“http://neuroscience.cornell.edu/compneuro.html]Program”>http://neuroscience.cornell.edu/compneuro.html)
[Education ? Princeton</a> Neuroscience Institute](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/neuroscience/education/]Education ? Princeton”>Education | Neuroscience)</p>
<p>If you have no desire to go to med school, what other careers in medicine appeal to you? Take the answer from the question I just asked and compare it to the automotive industry careers. Remember, you can major in automotive design (idk what major that would be) and just minor or take other classes in medicine if it appeals to you.</p>
<p>I knew two guys in college who majored in engineering (ME and EE) who then went to medical school, so you definitely don’t need to decide your path now.</p>
<p>Mechanical engineering would be an obvious major for the OP’s stated interest of aerodynamics in the automotive industry.</p>
<p>The automotive industry uses other kinds of engineers, such as electrical (designing the electrical systems in cars), computer (designing the computers and software in cars), industrial (optimizing production, supply chain, etc.), and materials (finding better materials to use in car parts).</p>
<p>You don’t need to figure it all out right now. Your top priority should be getting top grades with a rigorous course schedule. </p>
<p>Feel out what you enjoy most.</p>
<p>They’re very different paths. For medicine - you would be studying pre-med which is often chemistry or bio. Also the schools that are strong in pre-med are not always the best engineering schools. The problem with pre-med is that you have no guarantee of getting into med school (with few exceptions where a school has a guaranteed med school option) - it depends on your college GPA and MCAT scores. </p>
<p>I suggest you spend time this summer exploring both fields more. Maybe work in a medical setting to see if that’s what you’d like to do. It sounds from your post that engineering is something you’d enjoy and it’s a good field for jobs. Also, be aware that there are not a lot of jobs in “neuroscience.”</p>
<p>Spend this summer doing something productive, reading a few good books, reviewing SAT if you need to retake in the fall, working on college essays etc. Pre-med is a set of prereq courses to satisfy medical school admission requirement. You can major practically anything as long as you take those courses, have high GPA and strong MCAT. BTW, many college students change major, you never know until you get there.</p>
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<p>You’re either in engineering or your not. You don’t decide this half way through your college career, fuzzy headed thinking to the contrary.</p>
<p>That is not true. Many college students change their majors more than once and often you do not have to declare an engineering major before your junior year. You might look into biomedical engineering but other engineering majors do not preclude admission to medical school. Far from it.</p>
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<p>This is total BS. Show me one decent ABET engineering program where you can switch into engineering junior year and still graduate on-time. Most engineering programs require you to select your specifc discipline sophomore year.</p>
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<p>Biomedical engineering has the worst job prospects of the major engineering areas as you will see from reading hundreds of other CC threads on this topic.</p>
<p>The problem with BME as an undergrad degree is that the required coursework is so spread out between science/math foundations, engineering, and biology/chemistry, that you don’t have enough expertise to be useful to most employers. You knowledge is broad but not deep. That is why Carnegie Mellon only offers a BME degree if you double major in another engineering discipline:
Some engineering schools only offer BME as a specialization track within another undergrad engineering discipline, not as a separate major.</p>
<p>Medicine…</p>
<p>What you might have to decide now is whether or not you want to pursue engineering as an undergraduate. </p>
<p>Engineering is one of the professions which you can enter after getting an undergraduate degree. As a result, engineering programs are generally more rigorous than liberal arts programs and have many more requirements. It is very difficult to transfer into an engineering program because if you didn’t plan on it from the beginning, there is a good chance that you won’t have the right prerequisite classes and it’s likely that you will be unable to complete the degree in 4 years. </p>
<p>I think that the summer before your senior year is an excellent time to do some summer program that exposes you to engineering that will help you assess whether you think you might like it. </p>
<p>You’re not necessarily making an irrevocable decision on your career path. Life is long, and people change their mind. What you are doing is figuring out if you want to start the engineering path. </p>
<p>It is possible to go to medical school after getting an engineering degree if you fulfilled the pre-med prereqs, many of which overlap with engineering, but it’s kind of a hard way to go because it’s hard to get a medical school worthy GPA as an engineer, and they don’t give you extra credit for taking a rigorous curriculum. They actually like humanities and social science degrees because being a physician is about people more than it is about science. </p>
<p>BeanTownGirl has it exactly right with BME. </p>
<p>There are a number of schools with seamless transitions between the engineering and arts/science, meaning that engineering majors are just another major and you get admitted to the school. The one’s I can think of off the top of my head are MIT, Rice, Johns Hopkins, Rochester and Case Western. I’m sure there are more, but there are others like most state schools, Northwestern, Cornell, Princeton, Penn, and such where you have to be admitted specifically into the engineering school and it may or may not be easy to change your mind depending on your GPA.</p>
<p>Let me break it down for you plain and simple, Baly20:
First off, you’re smart for starting to think about this so early in your life. Junior year is the perfect time to start figuring out what you like to do and what you don’t like to do. So how do you figure out what you like more?</p>
<p>Well…
An engineer attacks different problems throughout his life. He will use many fundamental concepts to solve a variety of problems.</p>
<p>You said that you don’t want to go to medical school, so I’m guessing that the “other option” is to be a neuroscientist?</p>
<p>I think you should major in engineering and minor in neuroscience. Most schools won’t have a specific automotive engineering major other than like [Department</a> of Automotive Engineering | Clemson University, South Carolina](<a href=“Automotive Engineering”>Automotive Engineering)</p>
<p>UMichigan also has an automotive engineering program [Integrative</a> Systems + Design - College of Engineering - University of Michigan](<a href=“http://isd.engin.umich.edu/degree-programs/automotive-engineering/]Integrative”>http://isd.engin.umich.edu/degree-programs/automotive-engineering/)</p>
<p>If I were you, I would consider doing mechanical engineering and in your free time be a part of the solar car team or be a part of the automotive engineering team on campus. When you go out looking for a job, you’ll have many more options than if you did strictly automotive engineering.</p>
<p>Also go shadow a neuroscientist and see if you like what he does.</p>