<p>I'm curious about what the general opinion is about Premed vs Engineering. </p>
<p>Here's what I think about each one:</p>
<p>Engineering:
-Can get a job right after a Bachelors, and have a good starting salary
-Don't have to work really odd hours
-Can start their own business(Easier to get contracts as opposed to patients in a private practice)
-Get to use their creativity everyday and stuff
-The downside is that their job can get outsourced, Engineers may have to move from place to place as the field changes while Doctors will always be there because people will continue getting sick</p>
<p>PreMeds:
-Most of them don't make it to Med School anyways, if they don't get into any med school, then they are basically screwed in terms of backup plans or finding a job with a Bachelors in Biology/BBCS/Neuroscience whatever....
-They go through 4 years of Weed-Out classes all while balancing research, and Shadowing Doctors like drones in order to pad their resumes.
-Medical field has too many laws regulating it, and Doctors have to deal with malpractice cases. Their degrees also have more debt than Engineering ones in general
-Takes 8-10 years before any real income is made, and work extremely irregular Hours
-And all of this is also IF Premeds make it to Med School to begin with. </p>
<p>I know I overgeneralized this, but I think each one has Pros/cons. PreMed seems to be more "High Risk/High Reward" in my opinion</p>
<p>Anyone else have any other opinions on this??? No Trolling Lol, I'm just interested in knowing what everyone else thinks....</p>
<p>If you are taking a passion for medicine out of the equation, an engineering degree is better hands down. </p>
<p>And no, medicine is not high risk/high reward. It’s more low risk/low reward. Think about, 73% of Michigan students who apply to medical schools with a 3.6 GPA get in. If you study biology or an easier major, it is not to difficult to get a 3.6. And if you major in something more difficult, I’m sure medical schools will adjust for that. So a 3.5 Physics major is not in bad shape at all. </p>
<p>Being a physician is a great profession if you are really passionate about it, but it’s not worth it for the money. A family friend of mine who is a doctor told me the only reason you should go into medicine is if you cannot imagine yourself doing anything else. </p>
<p>But this comparison doesn’t even make any sense in the first place. You can major in anything a be premed. So you could major in Economics and if you don’t get into Medical School you will still have solid job prospects. Hell you could even major in Engineering. That way you can have your cake and eat it too</p>
<p>The high/risk high/reward argument is subjective to what you consider a reward. For (most) doctors the reward comes from practicing and saving peoples lives and feeling a sense of reward for that. Part of the reason the path to practice medicine is so long is to weed out the people who are just in it for the pay check or aren’t serious about helping people with their health. If you are truly passionate about becoming a doctor then the 7+ years to become one and all the difficulties that come with it are part of the challenge to earn the career and with the end goal in mind, they don’t seem as daunting. </p>
<p>Even if you go the pre-med path (you can also go pre-med and engineering) its good to have a back up plan of such as grad school or a possible career path lined up in case things don’t work out.</p>
<p>Pick your subfield wisely and you should be happy (e.g. if you don’t want to work with computers all day, do not do CS just for the pay, do things that really excite you so you can move up). </p>
<p>You can always segway into premed later if you experience some late-blooming passion for medicine.</p>
<p>By the way, for a freshman you seem really informed about premed, how did you find out about all these nuances?</p>
<p>The hours aren’t odd, but they can be very long. Good engineering jobs might require 60+ hours per week for years at a time. This varies.</p>
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<p>Don’t bet on it. I don’t know much about medical practice, but I’d guess on the opposite. Creating a successful engineering business is brutally hard, and the vast majority of engineers have no hope of ever doing this.</p>
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<p>I wish - you’ll be using your creativity next to never, but that’s life. There aren’t that many truly creative fields.</p>
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<p>Outsourcing isn’t really as big of a problem as it’s cracked up to be. Most engineers don’t have to move, but they are limited to the areas where engineering jobs exist today. E.g., you may have to move to Silicon Valley for computer hardware job. Doctors may always be necessary, but you might have to move based on the demographics of the area. If the town you practice in becomes depopulated, you’ll have to go somewhere else.</p>
<p>One more thing - </p>
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<p>It depends on what branch of engineering you pick, but engineering might have far more regulation.</p>
<p>Unless you are interested in Medicine because you think Medicine is interesting (which is not anything you listed in the OP) you will probably not be successful at it. You have to be able to tolerate sitting down and memorizing books. You (for the most part) don’t have to tolerate that in Engineering, and you won’t be expected to. </p>
<p>It’s obviously easier to outsource Engineering jobs than it is to outsource medical jobs, but I think the concern is overblown. As the world “flattens” there is less incentive to outsource jobs from the US overseas. Also many engineering jobs are done at the behest of the federal government and those must remain onshore.</p>
<p>premeds have more debt than engineering students in UG? I’m not sure how to back up or refute that claim. Engineering students pay more in terms of tuition, but that can be offset by internships/co ops while the student is in school, so i’d say if anything, premeds have less debt.</p>
<p>If you think those chem courses are weed out courses, engineering probably has just as many weedout courses.
To be honest, you have to have somewhat some passion for each field. You’ll hate it if you cant handle the stress.</p>
<p>^ i think what he meant was that the medical path will accrue more debt overall. an engineering degree at uofm IS several thousand dollars more expensive compared to a degree from LSA, so it makes absolutely no sense that pre-meds would have more debt than engineers.</p>
<p>Re: Outsourcing – while that <em>can</em> be an issue, don’t forget that most BRIC countries right now are graduating far fewer engineers than they need so there is a global deficit. Which means if you’re willing to work globally, your prospects in the field are decent. Even Germany was short by 40,000 engineers this year overall.</p>
<p>You listed no pros for medicine lol… so I think I know what you’re leaning towards.</p>
<p>That being said, medicine is for people with a passion for science but more importantly, for people with a passion for helping others. I’m pre-med, and I want to go to medical school and become a physician and perhaps get involved with research as well. I’m interested in the physical sciences, as well as medicine. The medical field can be brutal, but on the bright side, many find their reward from helping others, not to mention that the pay is pretty good, and the job security is great. Plus, getting into private practice isn’t that difficult if you want a low-stress environment. With the biotech and biomedical research going on right now, the medical field is awesome.</p>
<p>Oh and you can major in whatever you want as long as you do the pre-med reqs… so that “useless bachelors degree” situation doesn’t really apply…</p>