<p>Hi, I'm a sophomore chemical engineer aiming to go to med school. My GPA is currently low (~3.3) because I poorly managed my time last year while taking a weed out engineering class, resulting in a concerted plummeting of grades in my second semester. For that reason, I decided to postpone research and lighten my course load for a semester to see how well I could do as a baseline.</p>
<p>Despite taking the most challenging course of my major (transport phenomena), organic 2, and phys chem simultaneously, all seems to be going well, and I'm beginning to wonder what extracurriculars I should continue and/or pursue in the upcoming semester. I'm currently the VP of an international disaster relief organization called Tzu Chi, as well as an officer for the professional organization for chemical engineers, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). My options for next semester are loading up on extra courses to buffer my GPA (and to learn more, duh), starting up research again (I started last summer, but paused to focus on the bare minimum of getting good grades), and/or continuing one or both of my current leadership positions.</p>
<p>For Tzu Chi, I have attended an international conference (while communicating primarily in a language other than English), a national conference, as well as a youth assembly in the United Nations. Our collegiate chapter is fairly new and growing, and I'm working on solidifying membership retention (many folks run off after the first couple meetings) while encouraging current members to participate in more volunteering events. I'm fairly certain that if I continue, I'll have a chance to serve as the president at least once before I graduate.</p>
<p>For AIChE, I'm serving as the Society for Biological Engineers (SBE) representative, which basically means that in addition to fulfilling regular officer duties such as running general meetings and hosting events that connect the undergrad chemical engineering student body to companies seeking interns and recruits, I'm hosting my own events that connect chemical engineers interested in biology with members of our faculty doing research in such areas. Previously, this position has been hit-or-miss because it's a new one (created in the past five-ish years, while AIChE has been around at my school for decades). However, I think I'm the first one to host events with faculty speakers, with (hopeful) plans of bringing in outside speakers, e.g. biotech company reps in the future.</p>
<p>In terms of courses, I'm dying to take cell biology, and perhaps molecular biology, for the reason that I obsessed over biology and delved into the subject in high school. Now you might be thinking, "Hah, this kid thinks he knows something because he took a class... in high school?" Exactly the point. I worked in a cancer research lab for two years in high school, and took classes like cell and molecular biology, immunology, microbiology, as well as a virology seminar. Although the biology department isn't one of our school's highlights, there's still a distinct line drawn between high school and college classes.</p>
<p>I am interested in math courses as well, and I've had wistful thoughts of eventually taking pure math courses such as Real Analysis as well as Probability and Stochastic Processes because mathematical abstractions have enormous potential in superposing key chemical engineering ideas onto biological chassis. In practice, I'd need to focus on math courses (rather than bio) as electives to get to the neat stuff. In the short-term, this would probably mean taking Linear Algebra (a prereq and quite useful in itself) and Vector Calculus (immediate applications in engineering, although surprisingly not required). In terms of workload, Vector Calc would probably be easier due to past exposure, but linear algebra would be new and would take more time as a result.</p>
<p>As for research, my supervising professor said that I'd be welcome to return at any time, and that I could get one, perhaps two, papers published, depending on how much work I finished. I'd wager a guess that I'd be second author behind the grad student with whom I worked over the summer because looking at past papers involving undergrads, the professor put himself last. (Heck, I don't even know whether it would make any difference.) Frankly, I'm not sure about the journal of publication, although it would probably be something to do with genetics and bacteria. The past undergrad group paper was published in ACS.</p>
<p>Although my courses next semester are as light as they'll be until graduation, from (painful) experience I now very clearly understand that 'everything' is not a valid option. The problem is, I have trouble making cuts because I'm not sure how med schools prioritize their wants. I've largely investmented in Tzu Chi, so that one I feel, is a keeper. I'm hesitant to drop AIChE because it's by far the largest among the engineering organizations (including other disciplines) at my school, and I started something new with potential. I'd like to take at least one of the bio classes, if only to justify that I've a collegiate-level understanding of the topic and to help bring my grades back up. Math, I feel, is eerily fascinating after the fact (but not during) and might help me stand out as a med school candidate (who the heck combines pure math plus engineering, anyway? On the other hand, it's not gonna be 'pure math' until I jump through a couple more prereq hoops.). Oh, and I do volunteer at a hospital for a couple hours every weekend, so that's been taken into account.</p>
<p>Am I missing anything, and/or have I misaligned my priorities? I hate to think of my future med school application as a checklist for pleasing med schools, but I used to think otherwise about college and took a blow as a result (love my school, but missed an opportunity to do better).</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for reading this far/responding!</p>