<p>I'm not talking about biomedical, because that seems to be the engineering of choice for pre-med. But how about Chemical, Civil, Mechanical, etc. I see a lot of people on this website saying that you can even do a History or English pre-med major. Wouldnt this be even harder since you will be a bit less prepared for med (or dental) school exams and will only be able to take the required pre med (or again, dental) courses through electives? Can't the engineering kids do the same- take the required courses with their electives? But wait.. arent most of them taken anyway with an engineering major? </p>
<p>I'm asking because I want to major in an engineering (not sure what yet) but keep the possibility open for med/dental school</p>
<p>The problem is not within the flexibility of the major, but rather the general difficulty associated with engineering majors. Because engineering majors are typically harder than other majors, it is therefore harder to maintain a competitive GPA, and could be deemed as an unnecessary risk. However, if engineering is your passion, you should major in it and stay focused - it’s not impossible.</p>
<p>A lot of it is time and GPA considerations. Engineering majors (at most schools) are well-known for not believing in curved grading scales, or just generally harder grading in general. This is not to say that engineering is specifically harder than say, a major in Biophysical Chemistry, but that engineering is very math and applied science heavy, and they believe in realistic grading scales. (That said, engineering is often one of the more difficult undergraduate majors.) Pre-med is not easy regardless of what you major in, but some other majors may have more favorable (for you, anyway) grading practices. The time issue comes into play a lot too. Engineering majors often have a very full schedule and it is harder to fit all of your premed requirements in to a structured, career-focused class schedule like Electrical Engineering than it would be with a flexible liberal-arts type major like History (or even a B.A. in Biology). Most pre-med engineering majors end up taking some summer classes to get everything done in 4 years and be on track for med school, and they have to keep a very close eye on their GPA to avoid being put at a disadvantage, but if you really like engineering and think you would get more out of that than another major, go for it. You’ll have different strengths than say, a Biology major pre-med, when it comes to the MCAT and med school (you’d better ace that physical science section on the MCAT 
), but you can definitely do it if that’s where your talents and interests are.</p>
<p>GPA needs to be high, it is much harder to achieve in any engineering major as all of them are more challenging at ANY college than any other majors. There is simply no comparison. However, at one of the information sessions, represantative from Med. School indicated that they like biomed. engineers more than non-engineering majors because they are aware of academic challenges and appreciate everybody who survived them and also because Biomed. engineers undestand the way body works better than others. I am simply a messanger in this, just repeating what I heard.</p>
<p>mmcnell, I would point out that most engineering majors require students to take introductory calc-based physics, general chem, and calculus. Depending on your discipline, it may also require you to take organic chemistry as well, and then biology for those pursuing BME, so, IMO, trying to fit the pre-med curriculum into an engineering major shouldn’t be too much of a complaint/issue. I think that if it is a complaint/issue, then the issue that needs to be focused on is whether or not you can handle engineering at all, not so much whether or not (or how) you can fit the pre-med track into your schedule.</p>