I’m going to be a senior next year and I want to major in Biomedical engineering. I’m currently taking for AP/Honors:
Honors Anatomy and Physiology
Honors Precalculus
AP Statistics
AP Language and Composition
For next year I’m planning on taking:
AP Calculus BC
AP Physics C: Mechanics
AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism
AP Biology (with Lab)
Is this courseload manageable? or is it too much? Do i really NEED AP Bio for biomedical engineering or is physics more important?
I took AP Bio, AP Physics C, and AP Calc BC last year. Is it possible? Definitely. Is it manageable? If you’re a strong student in general it should be - AP Bio usually involves a lot of chapter outlines so you obviously need to be prepared for a lot of homework from those three classes combined. The nice thing is that you have until next year to decide, so that gives you some time to evaluate how well you’re doing in your classes this year. I notice that you’re skipping AP Calc AB and AP Physics 1 & 2 (which is fine - AB is always covered in BC, and Physics 1 & 2 don’t do much in terms of college admissions/credit if you’re planning on a STEM major), so you’ll be covering a lot of content at a rapid rate next year. It might be nice to find some websites with AP Bio, Physics, and Calc content and look over it this year just so that you know what you can expect next year. For biomedical engineering, it would probably be nice to take both AP Bio and AP Physics if you can.
Do you need both? No. In fact you don’t need either. For many universities, you would have to retake those courses in college anyway. As far as if the courseload is manageable? That depends upon your work habits and/or your teacher. I will point out that 2 AP sciences will result in spending a lot of time writing lab reports.
I wouldn’t recommend it. BC + Physics C should keep you plenty busy, especially since you’ll have that hidden extra class called “college applications” and as skieurope said, you’d be spending a lot of time in lab/on lab reports.
For Biomedical Engineering, or Engineering in general, a strong foundation in Calculus and Physics would be more important. (And in order to “frontload” your GPA, I’d recomment you NOT skip Calc 2 and Physics 1 in college.)
Why do you plan on doing BIomedical Engineering BTW? if it’s related to med school, it’s a bad choice - almost nothing in common with med school but engineering GPAs are typically much lower than in other majors and med schools select based on GPA and MCAT scores, and no allowance is made because you picked a major with harsher curves. If you’re interested in Engineering, Biomedical Engineering is the only Engineering major that requires grad school. It is however more practical than Biology.