I’m interested in doing Pre-Med with a major in Biomedical Engineering. Can I double major with pre med/biomedical engineering and music? If so, what does each music major mean? Like for example, music education, music performance? What does each of these majors mean and which one is the best?
Hi @SDave03 - well, some of this will depend on the college or university, but at most places, engineering and music are in different “schools” which means studying both music and engineering would require satisfying the degree requirements of both schools. Usually this takes 5 years and is referred to as a “double degree” because you are generally getting a B.S. degree in the school of engineering and a B.M. (Bachelor of Music) degree in the school of music or perhaps a B.A. in the college of arts and sciences, depending on the college or university.
I strongly suggest that you read the “Double Degree Dilemma” essay pinned to the top of this forum as it will explain some of the ways to study music in college and the ways it can be combined with other subjects and what type of student is most likely to be suited to which type of school and degree.
Music education and music performance majors are typically B.M. (Bachelor of Music) degrees. a B.A. in music is more of an academic music degree at most schools. Music Education leads to certification to teach in the public schools of the state in which the university is located (though many good music schools have reciprocal arrangements with other states). If you plan to go to med school, then it might not matter what your degree or major is, as long as you’ve got a good GPA and MCAT score and have completed the standard pre-med coursework. At some schools there are established programs and pathways for double degrees in both music and engineering (e.g. U of Michigan’s PAT programs, Johns Hopkins/Peabody, Northwestern), but at others, the combination can be very difficult due to conflicts between rehearsal times and lab times, for example. Some music studio professors are more willing to allow double degree students than others, so it may vary by instrument, as well.
Once you have read the “Double Degree” essay, feel free to ask more questions.
I appreciate your help so much! I will surely read it @classicalsaxmom
Look at programs on school websites. You will see the differences between music education and performance curricula, and course listings.
As others have pointed out, you could get a performance degree and still be pre med,you could take the core requirements for med school along with a BM degree, for example, and then apply to med school (would depend on the school, some schools may not let you do that, even if you wouldn’t be doing a dual degree).
In terms of music performance, there are basically two degrees, a BM or a BA , a BM is going to have the most concentration on music, you will spend most of your time on it, including heavy theory and aural skills training, ensembles, etc. My experience of a BA on an instrument is there are a lot more academic non music courses, and less direct music stuff.
Music ed is very different, it is not a performance degree, because you have to spend time learning about other instruments, things like band direction (marching band), along with teaching classes, the specialized classes will replace a lot of the theory track and ensemble stuff BM kids do.
A dual BM with a BS in biomed engineering would be a rough sled, and may be very, very difficult to schedule, you likely will run into conflicts between the music side, with all the ensemble training, theory, aural skills, and of course the lesson, studio classes and practice, that make a BM a pretty intense degree (my S just graduated, and he would tell you his biggest enemy was time, never had enough), and with biomed the engineering and science classes are going to be time intensive, too…obviously, you can do things like take classes in summer to help make it less time intensive during the year, but likely it would be a 5 year haul and would still be very intense. Engineering is rough by itself, and biomed from what I know of it is at the intense end of an intense field.
Music ed has its own intensity (not an expert on it), and to be honest unless you have a desire to teach kids in public school music progorams, I would discourage you from going that route, it isn’t a performance degree, and quite honestly there are far too many going into it IMO who do so because “I can be in music, and it will be a steady paycheck”, and end up bitter people unhappy with it…
Maybe because of one of the speakers at my son’s graduation (happened to be Andre Previn), but the question I would ask you is what is your interest in music? Are you thinking of becoming a professional musician, or are you thinking you simply would like to keep up with music? Reason I ask that is to quote Previn, you don’t need to do that (ie get a BM degree) to enjoy doing music, for example a lot of top schools have really strong music programs even though they don’t offer a bm degree (the ivies, liberal arts colleges), and you could continue to take lessons, play in ensembles, while getting a biomed engineering degree, lot of doctors and other professionals keep up playing for the joy of it in semi pro and amateur orchestras, and many of them are quite accomplished. Not discouraging you from doing any one thing, just pointing out you can still do some pretty high level music as part of school without doing a BM and can focus on the biomed/pre med track if that is what you want to do.
Thanks so much for the advice! I guess a BA/MBA in accounting and BS/MS in Biomedical if it is possible. @musicprnt
You have another thread on this so just repeating what I wrote there:
You can do a BM or major in music for a BA, and still go to med school. Music majors have high admit rates to med schools.
You can get a BA or BS in something else and continue music via lessons, practice and extracurricular performance.
You don’t seem interested in teaching music so don’t do music education.
You can major in biomedical engineering and go to grad school for business, or med school, or, depending on talent and progress, even for music.
Majoring in accounting as an undergrad might be more limiting in terms of post grad options but I don’t know that much about it. It would mean access to a specific kind of job after graduation, however.
In any case, you are trying to do 3 different areas of study and all 3 are intense and involve required sequences of coursework. We are saying, in both threads, that combining two of them would be almost impossible. Combining three IS impossible.
Choose an area you want to study- music, accounting or biomedical engineering-and then make your other interests work either through a minor, or through a few courses, or outside of the classroom. There is plenty of time in life so see how things evolve for you. Nothing is written in stone and you can take other directions after graduating if you so choose.
Just reiterating that music is a time intensive degree. Music majors are known to be among the busiest students. Similar is said of engineering. It would be difficult to combine the two.
"Thanks so much for the advice! I guess a BA/MBA in accounting and BS/MS in Biomedical if it is possible. "
Might be possible, but to be honest I doubt if it would be practical (I realize this is getting away from the topic of music). On paper it always seems like dual majors are possible, that of course the student can get training in two different areas, but that isn’t the reality of things. To do a ba accounting/bs in Biomed engineering then a ms/mba in the two fields would take a long time and would be very, very intensive, engineering by itself is a grind, and while some may consider accounting “easy”, it isn’t, while it isn’t my cup of tea (just ask any of the people who taught my accounting classes in grad school!), and it would be a pretty tough sled for an engineering degree and another degree that may be (relatively) less intense.
Getting back to the general thread, the music world, I have seen a number of kids, kids around my son at high level music programs, who do the dual BM/another degree route, and even where it is built into the program (Bard, 5 year program), in general either one or the other suffers, either their playing ability suffers or the academic side does, there are very few kids who do that who end up doing well in both (and keep in mind this is my observation/opinion, based on more than a few examples, but still my opinion). When my son went to Juilliard Pre college they could generally tell the kids by junior year who were heading to an academic college, their playing fell off as the academic prep intensified during high school and they struggled to do it all, and practicing and such suffered. That doesn’t mean kids shouldn’t do a double degree program, rather it means kids need to be aware of the tradeoffs in doing so that potentially they end up worse off in music than if they did the academic degree and took lessons and such as a non BM student, for example. Sadly, because of parental pressure mostly, kids feel compelled to get a ‘real’ degree that ‘means something’ like a STEM degree, finance, economics, etc along with the BM, and these kids often end up where neither degree works for them, musically as much as they love it the dual degree drag on the BM left them with not much chance of pursuing it professionally (if that was their passion), and they also end up with an academic degree that they can resent because they know it kept them from their real passion…
Thanks! I understand now! 
@musicprnt