Hi! Currently, I am deciding between UT Austin and UW Madison. I was admitted to both of their engineering schools for Biomedical Engineering, but I am thinking about switching to biochemistry as I want to attend medical school. I live in Wisconsin and cost really isn’t a factor for my decision.
I was wondering if anyone had any information on which school would prepare me best for admissions into med school and which school had more opportunities for research and volunteering.
Thanks!!!
UW and UT can be thought of as twins separated at birth with one raised in the north and the other in the south. One just has a ridiculous accent.
I agree, you cannot go wrong for chemistry, and premedical advising, both are superb.
Madison may have slightly easier time registering for classes than Austin. Check that. If you want to take
CS minor, Austin is going to be difficult to get into any CS classes, but that may not interest you at all.
Pick the city and weather you prefer. Have you visited each campus? I would think about whether to study engineering if you want to be a clinical doctor. And consider electrical or mechanical engineering as biomedical is too general to get a job at the end, if you change your mind. Engineering is an overkill degree for a doctor, unless you want to be an orthodontist and then mechanical engineering is best. There are some research medical professions in measurement sciences (MRI, CAT Scan, radiology ) and then electrical engineering is a good fit. . If you do pick biomedical engineering, that can lead to orthodics design or pharmaceutical career, or medical device design, but in all cases you need at least a masters do get into those fields.
Many biomedical engineering grads today end up in software engineering jobs at medical device companies today.
So do take some CS classes, although at UT Austin you would be shut out of those, given the 3000 undergrad CS majors there.
There are few jobs for a bachelors degreed engineering in biomedical engineering , but you can get a PhD in that subject, or masters and learn to design medical devices, for instance. Mechanical engineering is the broader more useful degree program because it focuses on all sorts of designs, not just designs related to the human body. . Or chemistry is really good if you like that subject. Study something you love and you will do fine.