I have always been interested in physics and engineering, but last year I found out that I want to be a doctor. I shadowed an engineer and a doctor and realized that what you like to study and what you like to do for a living in the future are actually quite separate things.
So here’s my question.
I know many people try to do bio/biomedical engineering with the pre med track. However, I haven’t really heard of ppl majoring in some other engineering stuff.
For example, do you think it will be doable to major in materials engineering in university of washington and go into a good/decent medical school? I know it depends on how hard working I am, but I just want to know whether it requires simply “hard work” or literally no freedom to do anything.
As getting into med school will be my priority, do you think it will be better for me to go with the “usual” premed track with some natural science degree?
Thanks in advance.
It entirely depends on where your academic strengths lie.
Is it possible to do so? Yes.
D1 majored in physics and is now a physician
Mom2’s son majored in ChemE and will graduate from med school next month. I know a EE grad who is now a transplant surgeon.
Can you major in materials engineering and still manage a GPA that is high enough to be competitive for med school admissions? That I can’t tell you because I don’t know you, your abilities, your work ethic or your time management skills. Your high school math or AP physics teacher will have better insight about that than some random stranger on the internet.
Engineering has a very lockstep curriculum that leaves little room for extra classes that are not part of the curriculum. As a first step you should make a spreadsheet of engineering classes required for your degree then add in the required pre-med classes not included in the materials engineering degree to see if you can fit them all in.
If you can fit them all in, then look at the difficulty of your coursework on a quarter-by-quarter basis and think about whether you will be able to fit in pre-med ECs while still maintaining a high GPA.
@WayOutWestMom Thanks for the honest response!
I consider my self fairly hardworking. However, I just have no idea of the extent of effort I would need to put in to this. Will I have no social life at all? Will I be able to have time to have some mediocre-outstanding ECs?
Did those people you mentioned above attend a rigorous/prestigious college? A small private school with a strong premed advisor? I think I am just quite lost in all these questions haha.
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the EE graduated from Lehigh
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both my D and Mom2’s son graduated from their respective state flagship Us (BTW, D2 was a math & biological neuroscience double major at top 30 research U --so no slouch there either. She just finished her 3rd year of med school yesterday.)
They all had time to for a social life, including in at least half of the cases above, frat/sorority membership. In fact I can pretty much guarantee than unless it was finals, none of them spent their Friday/Saturday nights booking it at the library. This doesn’t mean these people are natural geniuses and didn’t have to study/do homework. They did, but they also knew how to maintain a decent work-life balance while getting everything done they needed to do.
(Also not saying the they were all perfect students either. D1 had a fairly difficult transition as a freshman. She cruised through high school and never really learned how to study. It bit her in the butt freshman year and her grades weren’t pretty. No D/F grades, but lots of Bs.)
I tell pre-meds if they’re spending all their time studying, they’re not doing something right. (Poor time management, poor/ineffective study skills, etc) Medical school covers 10x the material in the same amount of time as an undergrad course. If you need to study all the time in undergrad to do well, med school will eat you alive.
Here’s a question to ask yourself–how much time & effort are you putting in your high school classes? If you’re going all out or are working at nearly full capacity in a full suite of difficult classes (advanced level math, AP sciences, honors) then engineering may be struggle for you.