Post-Rice medical student for hire

Colleges and Universities A-Z Rice University
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<p>Howdy ya'll.</p>

<p>I graduated at Rice this past year, and have answered a few questions about Rice and being premed at Rice. I found that I enjoyed this, so if anyone else has any questions about life at Rice or the medical school application process, I'll be glad to answer.</p>

<p>As a little background, I graduated cum laude in Bioengineering, a major which I highly recommend for premeds who enjoy math, though I hear it's being changed slightly from my graduation requirements. It was, and still is, the major with the most required hours (134), but as I hear, you have to take more electrical engineering classes and skimp out on some of the premed requirements, such as second semester organic chem. But since this is required for medical schools, you get the pleasure of taking it anyway, and your total hours may increase past the norm. Joy... :P</p>

<p>With any AP credit though, this is easily doable. I graduated with 150+ hours without too much hassle and even doing a double track in bioe (biomechanical engineering, and cellular and molecular engineering). </p>

<p>I came into Rice out-of-state, though I'm from Texas originally. I graduated second in my class at a public school, with a 1450 on the SAT, 34 ACT, and 660 writing, 750 Math IIC, and a 790 chemistry on the SAT IIs. </p>

<p>Rice is the only college at which I applied, with my application being early decision. I was also looking at MIT, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Duke, and Caltech, but I thought I'd enjoy the Rice atmosphere the best out of these.</p>

<p>I am currently a first year at a medical school in Texas, planning to go into a surgical residency eventually.</p>

<p>I'll be more than happy to entertain any questions about Rice or medical school/premed at Rice.</p>

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<p>i plan on doing bioengineering. was the material really challenging or was it just alot of work? i plan to eventually get an M.D. as well so you're pretty much doing what i want to do.</p>

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<p>Rice's engineering policy is basically that if you need to know something, look it up. A lot of the exams are open note/book, so as long as you understand and can utilize the concepts, there isn't that much studying that's required. In fact, you really can't study for some of the exams.</p>

<p>The challenging part is taking what's available to you and creating a valid model to explain the situation. This takes practice more than anything, and some people seem to naturally grasp this better. If you're one of those, the material is not too difficult. Otherwise, bioe can be pretty rough at times and a lot of people change majors after the Fundamentals of Bioengineering course.</p>

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<p>i really like that kind of stuff, similar to things im doing in biology right now i assume. i dont have too much trouble at all with it either. im def applying to bme. thanks for the info.</p>

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<p>I've heard that Rice's Fundamentals of Bioengineering just might be the toughest engineering intro course on the planet. True?</p>

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<p>All other engineering disciplines pale in comparison to BIOE. All other schools pale in comparison to Rice. Thus, all of Rice's BIOE classes are way tougher than their other engineering counterparts. :P</p>

<p>Seriously though, it's not bad if you basically just learn one equation well. In - Out + Production - Consumption = Accumulation. As long as you can do that in 50 different ways, you're set.</p>

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<p>Hi Knaack,</p>

<p>I wonder if you could answer this question?</p>

<p>For one in BioE major who is interested in neither pre-med nor academics, which one of the sub-fields (copied directed from Rice's BioE website) has the best job prospect now and in the near future? And Why?</p>

<ul>
<li>Biomaterials and Drug Delivery,<br></li>
<li>Biomedical Imaging and Diagnostics, </li>
<li>Cellular and Biomolecular Engineering, </li>
<li>Computational and Theoretical Bioengineering, </li>
<li>Supramolecular Biophysics and Bioengineering, </li>
<li>Tissue Engineering and Biomechanics. </li>
</ul>

<p>Thanks for taking the time to help,</p>

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<p>If I major in bioengineering, is it worth it to minor in psych? I really want to go into the medical field as well, and I realize that I really don't need either of these degrees, but I like the material. (:</p>

<p>Thanks for taking questions, btw.</p>

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<p>Hi morningbird,</p>

<p>When you graduate from Rice with a degree in BIOE, your track (cellular and molecular eng, biomechanics/biomaterials, or bioimaging) is more of just a departmental thing used for graduation requirements than a career altering decision. I ended up declaring CME instead of biomaterials, even though I was interested in biomaterials more the rest, simply because I finished that track first. But anyway, back to your question…</p>

<p>Drug delivery is a huge area right now. There are plenty of drugs to fix all sorts of genetic problems, but targeting specific cells and inducing cellular take-up are currently the major problems with using them. Developing vectors to do this more selectively would make a tremendous impact on the medical field and probably constitutes a good portion of pharmaceutical research. I’d recommend taking the Pharmaceutical Engineering course if you’re interested in problems like this. </p>

<p>Imaging and diagnostics is very industrial, but probably the weakest part of the BIOE field at Rice. I never felt that our electrical engineering courses were adequate for this, though they’re trying to revamp the curriculum to include more EE courses. By the time the current freshman graduate, this probably will have changed, especially since the new department chair is an EE by trade.</p>

<p>Tissue engineering will be the wave of the future if perfected. Inserting a scaffold into an arthritic joint and growing new cartilage, for example, would be an example of tissue engineering. Or designing a scaffold that would initiate angiogenesis and cell migration to repair damaged or missing tissue. However, I always viewed this as more academic than anything else.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t recommend biophysics or theoretical bioengineering for those not interested in academia, as it seems to be of more use for discovering how cells work rather than utilizing that information for technological or medical advancement. Computational BIOE could be used for companies interested in modeling a biomedical device, like an LVAD for example. Your job in this case could be to analyze and minimize shear forces created by the device to make it viable for medical use. However, I think a mechanical engineer with a few bio classes would probably be better trained to do this, honestly.</p>

<p>Hope that helps.</p>

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<p>-- me.duh</p>

<p>Rice doesn't have minors, so you won't get anything official for taking more psych classes unless you take enough to actually get a double major. It's doable with BIOE, but I wouldn't recommend it. You'll have a human behavior class in med school, and I'm sure you'll get the most clinically relevent material presented to you in that.</p>

<p>That being said, there's nothing to stop you from taking 25 hours worth of psych and not majoring in it if you're just interested in the subject. If anything, that'd be something interesting to bring up on your med school interviews. :P</p>

<p>And finally, if you're really interested in them, AND you really don't want to put in the extra work, you can audit them so they'll appear on your transcript, but you won't get a grade or credit. Or you can pass/fail them for credit. Neither are bad options.</p>

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<p>Knaack,</p>

<p>Thanks for the reply. Hopefully, your info can help us choose a right field to study in.</p>

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<p>hey Knaack, I'm intersted in doing pre-med at Rice, but I've heard it's harder than pre-med at other schools. What's your perception of the difficulty of the pre-med classes at Rice? Do they try to weed people out?</p>

<p>For an extreme example, I've heard of classes out there in which the professor flunks the bottom 10% of the class no matter how well they do...even if the bottom 10% of the class scored a 99% on every test, he'd fail them.</p>

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<p>I've never heard of a prof requiring 10% to be F's... the Rice student body would protest beyond belief at that one. It's possible to fail, but you'd really have to try, as the professor would help you raise your grade somehow, or at LEAST try to convince you to study more. Some classes grade on an absolute scale (>90 A, 80-90 B, etc), but most are on a standard curve. The average is typically given is around a B (could be slightly lower or higher, depending on the class), so if you're in the upper quartile, you typically get an A of some sort. In SE classes anyway…</p>

<p>Also, don't forget Rice is on a +/- system, with an A+ being a 4.333. And yes, some crazy people graduate with over a 4.0, even in science/engineering. The downside to this is that if you're “lucky” and get a lot more +'s than -'s, you could end up reporting a lower GPA to your medical school since they don't all take +/- into account. I forget exactly what happens in TMDSAS vs AMCAS apps, but in one of them, A+'s are just A's, and in the other, there's no +/- system at all (A+ = A = A-, repeat for B's, etc). </p>

<p>Out of the premed classes, I AP'ed out of a lot of the basics, but took 1 semester Biochem, two of engineering physics, and two of orgo. Texas med schools accept AP credit, or at least Rice's acknowledgement of it, which is MUCH better than having to retake general chem or do pchem as your second chemistry year. “Engineering physics” (Phys 101/102) is much tougher than the “premed physics” class (Phys 121/122), as you have to derive everything on the test instead of having an equation list. You also don’t learn optics/waves in Phys 102, which makes the MCAT more difficult. My advice would be to take the Phys 121/122 combo if your major allows for it. Though I’m rambling at this point, so let me get back to your question...</p>

<p>I can't think of any weed-out classes, where profs tried to get students to drop. Orgo was difficult if you procrastinate a lot, but otherwise, it was a pretty fair system. That's not to say orgo didn't change a few premed's minds about becoming a doctor, but everyone tries to help you finish the class rather than simply drop out.</p>

<p>Rice's premed classes probably aren't harder than, say, UT's or A&M's, but it is a more selective school, providing more highly motivated students to compete against. But since classes aren't typically curved to a C being average, your GPA won't suffer too badly in relation to other schools. </p>

<p>And one final note about something I just remembered (I know this is getting long).... During your first semester freshman year, you can drop any course at any time until the last day of class without penalty, aka no withdrawals on your record... no record that you even attended a single class of that course. It's a great option, and one I suggest you strategically use as a freshman. Take the harder courses, and drop if you need to (as long as you keep 12 hours to stay a full-time student). Not everyone utilizes this, but I think it can really help premeds judge what classes they should be taking when they're first coming in.</p>

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<p>Hey, thanks for the detailed reply! That helps a lot. Rice definitely sounds more friendly than the weed-out horror stories I've heard.</p>

<p>Btw, did having the Texas Medical Center next door help a lot? Do a lot of pre-meds get good internships/shadowing experience there?</p>

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<p>Having the TMC right next door is great. Between Baylor, Baylor Clinic, Methodist, the VA, Hermann Memorial, Ben Taub, MD Anderson, and a few more that I'm probably leaving out, you can pretty much always find a volunteer job of some sort, though it may be pretty mundane. Your best shot for getting a meaningful volunteering experience is probably to go through the premed advising office or your major's dept.</p>

<p>There are two summer programs I know a decent amount about: the Michael DeBakey Summer Surgery Program, and the SMART program. Both of these are at BCM, with the SMART program being more research oriented for people who enjoy the research side of medicine. The DeBakey program, on the other hand, allows upcoming undergraduate junior/seniors to shadow a surgeon for 9 weeks. It's a pretty amazing experience, as you scrub into several surgeries each day and can assist to some extent - how much depends on the hospital and the attending you're assigned to during the program.</p>

<p>Granted, you don't have to be at Rice to apply for the summer programs, but the point of mentioning those was simply to show that TMC has plenty of opportunities to aspiring future docs, be it in research or in a clinical setting.</p>