<p>i wanna go pre-med as well as a 3-2 engineering program my school offers. The latter of the two makes my curriculum limited to 3 years so i need to cram in a lotta courses. My guidance counselor in HS has strongly advised me to limit myself to 4 classes a semester whenever possible. So with this the only shot i have to completing both programs is to place out of as many intro science classes possible. </p>
<p>my question is will placing out of intro classes hurt my GPA since almost all profs. will tell you to retake the intro classes cuz it will help your GPA and build foundation for upper-level classes, while this has merit how heavily should this advice be taken? i also know that for med. school GPA along with MCAT are HIGHLY IMPORTANT, so i need that GPA to be high.</p>
<p>i plan on placing out of intro-level bio (i got a 5 on the AP and did well in the class, not too worried), intro-chem (got a 4 on the AP and since it was senior year i sort of gave up down the stretch, kinda worried) and jumping into an intro-calculus based physics (got a 3 on the physics b exam, most worried but also offset by the fact i got a 5 on the AP calc AB test so i know the math part isnt gonna hinder me too bad)</p>
<p>im gonna jump right into the upper-level bio, chem and ochem courses. is skipping those intro courses gonna hurt me GPA wise?</p>
<p>Why do 3-2 and pre med?
Do you want to be an engineer or a doctor?</p>
<p>It’s difficult enough to do engineering + pre med in 4 years.
If the curricula overlap incredibly, IE you’re doing bioengineering or biomaterial science. (even then it’s hard) If they don’t overlap a lot, then you still will have to take 4 years of work in 3, because even if you place out of the intro class you still have to take it; placing out of intro chem and bio doesn’t mean it fills the pre med requirements.</p>
<p>I’m not doubting your ability or anything, but how is that MS in engineering going to benefit you? </p>
<p>By the way, I’m a pre med engineer at a top 5 engineering school, and I think I’m crazy to fit it all in wit 8 semesters.</p>
<p>well i would be getting a BS in biomedical engineering from caltech/columbia and a BA in molecular bio from wesleyan. the purpose is because you cant understand modern day medicine in a sense without knowing biomedical engineering and as a worst case secnario i can use the bme degree to get a job if i plan to do gap years between undergrad and med school. </p>
<p>ive mapped it out, many 3-2 reqs, major reqs, and pre-med reqs overlap and given my molecular bio major even if i place out of a year of bio and chem i would be taking a years worth of classes in bio and chem just to satisfy the major which in turn satisfys pre-med. </p>
<p>im just wondering if skipping intro classes to cram it in 3 years is worth it. because i have to option to do 4 years and then 4-2 making 6 years in total but the cost is a little much so if i didnt need to that would be best</p>
<p>Could you elaborate on that? I’m genuinely curious–mostly because if that’s the case, I’m not as well prepared for medical school as I thought I was!</p>
<p>I believe many/most? kids do not complete the 3/2. Do you really want to leave Wes after three years? Do you really want to go to Caltech, where A’s are hard to come by?</p>
<p>You are right to be concerned about your physics score, particularly since Calc AB is not even half a year of college math (and not even close to the depth of what they teach at Caltech or other top engineering programs).</p>
<p>I highly doubt the relevance of BME to the practice of medicine.</p>
<p>Let me quote what BDM posted on another thread recently. Although he referred to science (especially science classes at the undergraduate level), I believe it is applicable to engineering as well.</p>
<p>“Most of the time, medicine has very little to do with the actual study of science, and has almost nothing to do with the sorts of sciences they teach at the undergraduate level. Medicine just has so much information – most of which doesn’t make sense because it’s very poorly understood – that it just has to be discovered by trial and error, and learned via memorization.”</p>
<p>“The bottom line is that you can’t gauge your suitability for medicine based on your science classes; you have to spend time in hospitals dealing with all sorts of sick people (who usually have extreme social problems as well).”</p>
<p>“liking science classes doesn’t necessarily mean you should be a premed. In fact, if you really love them, you should contemplate getting a PhD in the sciences…”</p>
<p>Another medical school student, who was a science major as an UG, once mentioned that the knowledge he obtained as a chemistry major also has very little to do with what he is expected to learn in medical school. (The learning capacity and the work ethics which were picked up on the premed track are likely useful though. – I would argue that the soft skills picked up in the club activities or life experiences outside the school (e.g., actual work experience like waiting a table which requires you to talk to strangers) may be more applicable in the important clinical years when the grades really count…)</p>
<p>*the purpose is because you cant understand modern day medicine in a sense without knowing biomedical engineering *</p>
<p>Gosh, then I guess most MDs in practice today are simply clueless. I wonder how they know what to do on a daily basis. Do they use a Magic 8 Ball?</p>
<p>@kristin, mcat2
the reason i said that is because my opinion is that today at least half of all new medical advances especially in the area of technology comes byway of biomedical engineering. so the way i see it if you understand bme, you will be able to understand better the principle of how the new device or what have you works and thus be able to apply it to practice better. thats how i see it.</p>
<p>@mom
that was quite an asinine comment</p>
<p>@blue
well i would still be taking another intro level general physics course, just calc based as opposed to algebra based which is what i took last year. im not skipping out of intro physics like i would be with bio and chem. so its not like im jumping into the engineering part of the program cold in a sense.</p>
<p>yeah, I get that. My point was to be careful and don’t overload yourself. Most engineer wannabes that I know can easily self-teach Physics B. Engineering Physics is another step up in both depth of content, but also competition. If you over extend yourself, you could be looking at several poor grades in the first semester which would not only kill off your Eng transfer prospects – Caltech and Columbia are not guaranteed – but you med school aspirations as well.</p>
<p>If the primary reason you’re doing BME is so you can essentially be a better doctor (by understanding new advances/principles of new devices better) I think you’re overestimating how useful your undergraduate science and engineering courses would be. If you were correct, and having this sophisticated understanding of BME were necessary for doctors to adequately understand new advances/principles of new devices, don’t you think there would be many more engineering majors in medicine?</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that med schools don’t really care what you studied in undergrad and also don’t really care where you went to undergrad. In a nutshell, what they care about is how well you think critically and solve problems, as well as how much you understand about medicine as a career. Generally speaking, a degree in the sciences or humanities (sometimes referred to as a liberal arts degree) is going to more effectively teach a student how to think critically and become the type of student med schools are looking for than a vocational degree such as engineering will. Very broadly speaking, a liberal arts degree is teaching students how to think–and an engineering degree is teaching students how to become engineers. That’s not to imply engineers don’t think–it’s to say that their undergraduate studies are teaching them to think like engineers.</p>
<p>Furthermore, undergraduate science classes aren’t necessarily indicators of what medical school will be like. It seems like med schools use the (very few) premed prereqs to test your potential for understanding science–because they’ll spend your preclinical years teaching you everything you need to know anyway. If an understanding beyond the basics were required prior to matriculation at med school…then, well, it would be required.</p>
<p>But if you’re studying engineering because that’s your passion, and you have a decent understanding of what it’s going to take to do all the premed classes on top of engineering classes, and what a major time commitment outside of academics it is to build a set of meaningful experiences necessary for admission to med school, then I think you should (by all means) pursue the degree in BME. </p>
<p>So far, from this board I’m getting the impression that you’re studying BME to get an edge on your future med school competition and because you think it will serve you well in med school. I personally don’t think those are legitimate reasons to determine your undergraduate course of study–but you are welcome to disagree with me there.</p>
<p>I use a TV all the time. I use a computer all the time. The list goes on and on. Do I understand how they work from every aspect of their operation? No. But can I use them? Yes.</p>
<p>A doctor may need to know only the effects, side effects, prerequisites to prescribe a certain medicine, but they really need not know the biology and chemistry at work that allows said effects to happen.</p>
<p>A doctor doesn’t conceptualize everything that he or she does. That would be impossible.</p>
<p>Skipping first Bio at D’s school was close to impossible. they went thru AP material in first 2 weeks and them move on. Background from this class was used in other classes. Weed out killer that made some honors kids fall out of pre-med. However, it is different from schools to school. You need to talk to current students at your UG as well as pre-med advisor to figure out. D. had both Honors and AP Bio - “5” on exam and used the same textbook at college. Did not help! However, Chem. was very easy, although D. did not have AP Chem. - was not offerred at her HS. She was glad that she took (she did not have a choice!). Very easy A that landed her a job of SI to Gen. Chem prof - lasted for 3 years. You never know, easy sometime just does it.</p>
<p>*the purpose is because you cant understand modern day medicine in a sense without knowing biomedical engineering </p>
<p>==================</p>
<p>Gosh, then I guess most MDs in practice today are simply clueless. I wonder how they know what to do on a daily basis. Do they use a Magic 8 Ball? *</p>
<p>@blue
ironically the transfer to columbia is guaranteed lol, but there are like 5 or so conditions you must satisfy so its no walk in the park: like A- GPA min., complete columbia’s gen-ed + pre-eng reqs., complete your current UG major and reqs. and im limiting myself to 4 classes a year since at least 2/3 will be science/math classes so i have a lesser possiblity of over-extending myself</p>
<p>@kristin
well im not necessarily doing bme to make my self get “an edge”. i’ve also said above the more pragmatic reason is because i know how hard it is to get into med school these days. so perhaps me having a BS in bme will allow me a little better opportunity to land some kind of small-time entry level job to keep me afloat in the event of a few gap years than a BA in pure bio.</p>
<p>OP, I would not “skip” any class that I did not get a 5 on the AP exam. These exams are curved very generously, so a score of 4 or 3 means that you missed a lot of the material. I accepted the credit and did not take the first year of Bio, Chem, Calc, or Physics, in college with no problems. BUT I got all 5’s on the AP exams and took Calc BC and Physics C. Best of luck.</p>
<p>^ ^
well im def. not “skipping” physics just to be clear, just gonna take the calc-based intro class as opposed to the algebra-based intro class; bio and chem are like half skips in a sense. i take 1 semesters worth and if i do well i get the other semesters credit as well.</p>
<p>in the end im gonna most likely gonna have to consult my advisor and the profs. after all my placing out of these intro classes have to be approved by them first</p>
<p>“the purpose is because you cant understand modern day medicine in a sense without knowing biomedical engineering”</p>
<p>-The next time I want to see dermotologist, I will have to find out if he has BS in BME. I was wondering myself why MD’s are not very helpful. It was all my fault. I was going to the wrong ones!</p>
<p>alright ya know what, the purpose of this thread was the get some advice of whether or not i should place out of intro classes, a handful of posters were helpful and i appreciate that, the rest of you picked out a sentence in my reasoning you dont agree with and start to debate (some of you in a childish manner)</p>