<p>Hey everyone. I will be an entering freshman in fall 2011, currently a Bioengineering major in the Integrated Life Sciences program and a Banneker/Key scholar at UMCP and I plan on doing a pre-med track of courses during my time in college. At the present time, I have no clinical or research experiences related to medicine, but I do know that I most likely do not want to be a pure bioengineer at this time. There were three reasons I chose the BioE major 1) it involved things that interested me: math, physics, chemistry, and biology 2) the Engineering school at UMCP is excellent and 3)I was thinking that if I don't want to become a doctor or if I really become interested in engineering two or three years down the road, then I would be stuck with a degree that wouldn't be as much use (not to bash the pure science majors out there).</p>
<p>Right now, I am seriously debating changing my major to chemistry or biochemistry because pre-med with engineering, even though it's bioengineering, seems extremely daunting, even though bioengineering students have gone to good medical schools. My question is: is this a wise choice? I really enjoy chemistry and everything involving it, so being interested is not a problem. Should I stick it out with bioengineering and hope that I am smart enough to get that 3.7+ GPA so I have a back-up in case I decide not to pursue medicine? Or, should I switch to chem or biochem or even biology, likely get better grades, but risk getting a non-engineering degree if I don't go to med school? I know I am very very early in "the game" as it were, but can anyone offer me any advice?</p>