<p>so i got into a discussion with my cousin about careers, and i finally asked him the question of what career he thought was harder to achieve: a doctor or engineer? </p>
<p>he told me that to become a doctor was more demanding given the overlong amount of schooling one must take in order to become one. true, one must go through undergrad, med school, and finally residency -- in aggregate requiring immense patience. that is not to mention the relatively slight difficulty in the curricula of a prospective med student. </p>
<p>i, however, thought otherwise. ironically, i don't really know exactly all the steps required to become an engineer (do they need to go to grad school?), and i know that the amount of education time-wise for a student to become an engineer is less than that required for a med student, but consider the esoteric concepts of the required subjects that engineers must be able to understand. they require so much brain power to the point where not just any lay student will be able to understand the material even with a lot of studying.</p>
<p>i know "doctors" have a higher avg salary than do engineers, but that is unsubstantial </p>
<p>for our interests' sake though, let's try and compare the route one must take if he/she wanted to become a chem/ee/mech/aero engineer for a prestigious entity (e.g., nasa) with the route one must take to get into a top-tier med school and later land a true doctor-paying job.</p>
<p>in the end though there is no wrong or right answer given the condition that there are such things as "good" doctors and "bad" doctors just as there are highly paid engineers and poorly paid engineers (that in addition to the different types of engineers). however, enlighten me. let your brains' run wild.</p>
<p>from a statistical standpoint it's much harder to get an MD. There are simply WAY fewer spots in medical schools than in engineering colleges. </p>
<p>Think of it this way. You only need a HS diploma or GED to begin engineering classes. In order to obtain an MD, you need a Bachelors degree. That's one more step. You don't need graduate level classes to be an engineer, but it's an absolute necessity for 4 years of medical school before you become a physician and then another 3-7 years of training before you really practice on your own.</p>
<p>I'd also argue that physiology and pharmacology are as difficult and esoteric as any subject an engineer has to know and understand...</p>
<p>Further the responsibility placed upon doctors in our society is much greater than those placed upon engineers.</p>
<p>but isn't pharmacology just a memorization of facts (i.e., the effects of certain drugs, sources, etc.)?</p>
<p>the distinction i was trying to make was that an undergrad pursuing a career in medicine would merely (not that mere) need to take courses which largely revolve around reading someting, then retaining the info learned.</p>
<p>engineers, in contrast, engage in classes which involve much more spatial or conceptual learning, and part of being successful in such classes is usually due to innate ability.</p>
<p>perhaps i'm just biased, but though i can accept the fact that pursuing a career may be more stressful (given the amount of schooling), i really feel that whether or not one successfully obtains an md has much more to do with patience and hard work than innate ability.</p>
<p>It's way harder to become a doctor rather than an engineer. For doctors there are so many years of training and so many hours to work in residency. Also it's very hard to get into medical school. </p>
<p>Looks at stats the "easiest" school to get into has an acceptance rate of 20%!!</p>