<p>I am a currently a senior in High School and I will start freshmen year in college in fall 2008. I want to pursue a career in medicine and I would really appreciate if you could answer my following questions.</p>
<p>(1) From admission perspective which is more difficult to get into between MCB/Premed and BioE/Premed?
(2) Which major/track is more competitive to maintain a high GPA?
(3) Which track has higher selection rate into medical schools?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>probably BioE for all of them. If you are dead set on getting into medical school, like me, than choose MCB because it is the easier major. But if you are not sure or might consider that medical school is not for you, then choose BioE because you will get a high paying job after you graduate.
MCB majors who don't get into medical schools or go into graduate schools have a hard time finding jobs, or they get crappy low-paying jobs.</p>
<p>What about BioE Premed concentration? This is a new concentration that UCB BioE department has started offering. Does that make maintaining GPA etc any easier than other concentrations of BioE? It seems this concentration has more Biological science courses and less BioE courses.</p>
<p>i don't know. Never heard of BioE Premed thing.</p>
<p>OK. MCB is not the premed major like many think. In MCB and the other similar majors (MB, MEB, etc.) you will only study tiny things. Unless your want to be a neurologist or a immunologist, MCB will not be really good for a pre-health things. In MCB you will never look at the whole animal (though, in MB and MEB you will end up looking at entire unicellular organisms, i guess).</p>
<p>Strongly consider IB in L&S or the Physiology and Metabolism major in CNR.</p>
<p>Take a look at the loose IB requirements (you essentially take what you want from the entire IB dept. following a couple guidelines) v. the straight-jacket MCB major which locks you into a subtrack.</p>
<p>Undergraduate</a> Courses</p>
<p>MCB</a> Undergraduate Program - At a Glance - MCB Major Requirements
Note: the straight-jacket of flexibility you will have</p>
<p>BioE premed concentration still requires you to take 45 units of engineering courses. So practically, you won't be able to take too many MCB/IB course to get around the engineering ones like it used to be. </p>
<p>But BioE classes suck anyways. They are either way too easy (which means a bad midterm will probably **** you up big time), disorganized like no others, or way too much work (aka the biomaterial class).</p>
<p>HypnosX: I've heard about how sucky are the BioE classes... Are you currently a BioE major? I'm very interested to transfer from MCB in L&S to BioE in the college of engineering... But, besides the high payment as BlueElmo mentioned, I'm not really sure about BioE's benefits. It will be hard to do well in BioE classes as well. Right now I choose my classes based on MCB lower div track. But I'm planning to take BioE10 in my sophomore year. See if i can actually take it.</p>
<p>Yes, I'm a BioE major.</p>
<p>BioE in Berkeley is not a terrible choice if you're a premed. But other than that I am not aware of other benefits. If you want to go to grad school or get a job, go to a more well-defined major like MechE/ChemE/MSE so that you can have more specialized skills. That's because in BioE classes, they like to teach you a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and then in the end give you a crap project to work on. So yeah, you get to learn a few topics, but you'll be a noob at every one of them; there is no "depth" in the class. Also, the class either doesn't have a textbook for guidance, or if there's one it is very esoteric.</p>
<p>In my opinion, bioengineering in general (not just in Berkeley) is still in its premature stage. While it is true that applying engineering concepts in biological systems is immensely complicated, I don't think such complication can be adequately addressed in an undergraduate level. </p>
<p>So yeah, that's my impression for BioE after 3 years. and I don't recommend it lol.</p>
<p>so did I get the message through, mcb is not the premed major. A lot of idiot mcb students started perpetuating the lie.</p>
<p>There is no such thing as premed major. MCB is the de facto major where lots of self proclaimed premed students congregate.</p>
<p>Lots of premed students do MCB because the prereqs to declare this major satisfy the classes that many med schools ask for such as Chem 1a, Math1a/1b, Chem 3a/al/b/bl....phsysics 8a/8b...etc etc.</p>
<p>there is no pre-med major at UCB. Check out integrative bio, microbial biology, etc. too, as there are tons of others that will have curriculums more than adequate for medical school.</p>
<p>krnbap617, basically all bio majors have the same requirements. The only major differences are that some require only Math 16A, some require 16A and 16B, and some require 1A and 1B. Essentially it is safest to take 1A and 1B and go on from their as you are choosing which bio major suites you.</p>
<p>IB is a conglomeration of many, many former bio majors and hence is Berkeley's general biology major.</p>
<p>OP, what is your reason for considering either of those? Med schools don't care about major, but they care a lot about GPA. Neither is known for giving out high GPAs.</p>
<p>
[quote]
BioE in Berkeley is not a terrible choice if you're a premed. But other than that I am not aware of other benefits. If you want to go to grad school or get a job, go to a more well-defined major like MechE/ChemE/MSE so that you can have more specialized skills. That's because in BioE classes, they like to teach you a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, ...So yeah, you get to learn a few topics, but you'll be a noob at every one of them; there is no "depth" in the class.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, to be fair, other engineering disciplines also tend to teach you just a little bit or this and a little bit of that, and you also end up as a noob in those topics. </p>
<p>Let me give you an example. I know a girl who got her BS ChemE at Berkeley. She then stayed at Berkeley to get a PhD (but in bioengineering, not ChemE). One semester as a grad student, she was offered a TA position for the chemical engineering thermodynamics class that she had taken before as an undergrad. She was reluctant to do so, because she confessed that if she were to take that position, she would first actually have to learn that material. Meaning that even though she did well in that class, she still didn't feel that she actually really knew what the heck was going on (and to be fair, nobody knew what was really going on in that class, as that ChemE thermo class is just infamously complicated.) But think about what that means. She was one of the superstar ChemE undergrads in her class (as not only was she was good enough to get into a Berkeley PhD program, she finished that PhD in only 3 years), and even she admitted that she thought she was a noob at thermo. </p>
<p>
[quote]
...and then in the end give you a crap project to work on.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, again, to be fair, this seems to happen in other engineering majors too. I can think of quite a few ChemE's who ended up with pretty darn mediocre projects. </p>
<p>
[quote]
So yeah, that's my impression for BioE after 3 years. and I don't recommend it lol.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I completely agree with you that I also don't recommend BioE. </p>
<p>But I think it has more to do with just that BioE's don't really understand some topics deeply or get stuck with crappy projects (as lots of ChemE's, even the superstars, also, frankly, don't understand some topics deeply and also get stuck with crappy projects). </p>
<p>I think the real problem is a matter of market competition and negotiating leverage. The truth of the matter is that bio/biomed companies just don't pay very well for bioE's because the market for them is poorly developed. Those companies simply don't know what to do with these BioE's, and will often times just treat them similarly to how they treat the bio majors (for which they also pay poorly). And those BioE's have to take it because they can't find anybody else to hire them. </p>
<p>Hence, I think a ChemE or ME (or even EE) degree is probably better and safer. At least with such a degree, when it comes to negotiating your salary with a biomed company, you can credibly threaten to work in another higher-paying industry. For example, a guy with a ChemE degree can credibly threaten to take a job at an oil refinery or microchip fab instead of taking the biomed job, so that means that you can't completely lowball him on pay. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that, if BioE's were getting paid 60k a year to start, the way that ChemE's nationwide are, then I would be very happy to recommend it regardless of whatever problems exist in the curricula. But BioE's don't get paid that kind of money. It is that low pay (relative to other engineers) that makes me recommend against BioE. </p>
<p>College</a> grads see higher starting salaries this year - Jul. 12, 2007
Career</a> Center - What Can I Do With a Major In...?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Well, to be fair, other engineering disciplines also tend to teach you just a little bit or this and a little bit of that, and you also end up as a noob in those topics.
[/quote]
true, true...
but BioE just brings this phenomenon to a whole new level. For example, in the biomechanics class, they just throw you some fluid mechanics equations, totally out of context, in the first two lectures on fluids. At least in ME, you have a whole class on these topics.</p>
<p>This makes me wanna point out another thing. Honestly, the purpose of naming this BioE is just to trick people into thinking that they are learning some esoteric "BIOENGINEERING" materials. Back to that biomechanics example, you may think that you're studying the bones, the arteries etc. But in reality you're not since the class makes about two millions assumptions on pretty much everything. So in general (true for all BioE classes):
Bone = rod/beam, with different young's modulus.
arteries =pipes, but really small pipes.
Keep that in mind folks. They are just that, though the instructors may not lead you to think as such.</p>
<p>p.s. oh yes, I love bashing BioE, 'cause it's just so bad =(</p>
<p>They have you take alot of classes with a specific concentration in mind within the BioE field. Plus biotech is huge here at UCSD. So if you want to go bioE go ucsd. But do not fool your self. If you are not great at physics then do not go into this field!!! It is still engineering and still functions around engineering core concepts.
I got into UCB and UCSD and chose UCSD because its the best for bioE, neuroscience, biomedical sciences, and medical research.
berkeley is great for engineering, computer science, chemistry, math, physics, and genomics (due to their computer science).
Im sure UCB will be competitive with UCSD within the next 10 years for bioE.
But do not go into a field for the MONEY!!! you will not be happy and its just not a good way to live. Do something that excites you and make you happy!</p>