<p>I want to cure AIDS someday (or at least fight HIV). Do I have to go to engineering school AND med school?</p>
<p>And should I go cheap for undergrad?</p>
<p>(Umich would make me feel like an underachiever, but it would reduce years of debt...)</p>
<p>No, you don't need to go to med school to be a bioengineer and work in a biotech company.</p>
<p>Curing AIDS is probably more a biology thing to do, to be honest. Biomedical Engineering generally involves devices of some kind. You'd major in bio, go get a PhD in biology -- possibly with an MD as well -- and then go do research in a virology department. Or you could go into industry rather than academia, but I don't think you'd get to choose your own products.</p>
<p>Biomedical engineering is when you want to build things like ultrasound devices or cardiac catheters or stuff like that.</p>