Which college (or profession, for that matter)?

College Search & Selection
21

So to recap, according to your recommendations:

In regards to college choice, I should take University of Arizona with Honors College and no debt upon graduation rather than UT Austin, and in regards to major I should investigate the available biology majors to find a specific, rigorous major that fits my best interest?

Edit: The engineering program at UT Austin is terrific, but the cost of ending up with over 60K in debt upon graduation is not a very enticing idea. If, for any reason, I decide in college that I would like to pursue engineering, UA should still be a good choice, no? I will join robotics/rocketry clubs in order to receive an extracurricular supplement in engineering if I take a dedicated pre-med non-engineering major. Additionally, is it feasible to do pre-med and get a minor in engineering (or take pre-med with a major in engineering)?

22

If, for any reason, I decide in college that I would like to pursue engineering, UA should still be a good choice, no?

Correct. UA is a solid school where you can receive a good education for a low price.

Additionally, is it feasible to do pre-med and get a minor in engineering (or take pre-med with a major in engineering)?

The minor is feasible but the major probably will not.

23

Would ecology be a good pre-med major? I am wondering, because I believe that ecology would probably emphasize environmental interactions and “whole picture” type concepts rather than the individual, cell-oriented biological concepts supposedly on the MCAT.

24

You answered your own question. IMO, ecology isn’t a good pre-med major. Those individual, cell-oriented biological concepts are VERY important to understanding the human body and what goes on (the chemistry) inside.

25

Any major that you like and can do well in, and which you can take the pre-med course work with or alongside, is a good pre-med major.

Arizona’s engineering majors are listed here: http://engineering.arizona.edu/majors
If you are interested in them, you may want to find out what technical electives are allowed by each major in terms of being able to complete the remaining pre-med courses within them. Chemical engineering even has specific suggestions for pre-med students at http://www.chee.arizona.edu/undergraduates-options .

26

Engineering will be fine at UA. It’s not uncommon for engineering students to pursue med school, but I think a lot of them start out with a wait-and-see attitude. Employment in engineering is likely their top priority, but if they end up with a decent GPA, they go ahead and write the MCAT. If their GPA is lowish, oh well, they satisfy themselves with the excellent job prospects in engineering. But it certainly takes a brave student to pursue an engineering major with the main goal of going on to med school. So that’s something you need to decide in regards to an engineering major, whether med school is your top priority.

Med school pre-reqs make up less than 20% of your program, so you should be able to minor or major in engineering, or just about anything, and still squeeze the pre-reqs in. Just try to come up with a decently rigorous academic program that meets your goals, that you’d be happy with even if med school didn’t work out, then incorporate the handful of med school pre-reqs.

27

If med school (for some reason) ended up not working out, would a minor in engineering be enough to secure a job in an engineering field? I have really high aims for med school, and I plan to study really hard/long for the MCAT.

I don’t mean to sound ignorant or arrogant, but what are the dynamics of med school “not working out”? I have always been a perfectionist in academics (never received a B), and although I know college will be difficult, I still plan to maintain a high-level GPA. In the scenario that I graduate with a 3.0 or sub-3.0 GPA (both relatively unlikely), medicine is still a possible pursuit, right?

Additionally - and although this is in the future - when should I start preparing for the MCAT? For the first 3 years of high school, I had some relatively lousy counseling (I wasn’t very familiar with the system, so I didn’t know much better), and I know the dangers of preparing too late for important tests. Also, is the MCAT as hard as people make it out to be? From what I have heard, the MCAT is really intense - but I would like to know what you guys think.

28

Sorry, but I could not edit my other post -

As a doctor, would I still have the opportunity to possibly establish a start-up or put my ideas to life? When I looked into engineering, I was under the influence that engineers are Tony Stark type characters that have the freedom to build and put their ideas to life (a notion that colleges seem to support as well). However, after a bit of research, I found that engineers generally develop products under strict government/manufacturing guidelines and thus cannot be as creative as I initially thought. I obviously will not have the same knowledge as a true engineer if I get a minor in engineering or simply join a rocketry/robotics club, but I will (hopefully) receive the knowledge to build.

I know that no one can predict the future, but what is really the better field to go into? What are the job prospects in engineering and medicine? If physicians are replaced by robots in the future, would it be more advisable to do engineering?

29

If you have a sub 3.0 GPA, yes med school is out of the question. It’s recommended you stay above 3.5-3.6 for best chances (which are about 1 in 2).
The dynamics of med school “not working out” is that once you get to some college classes, working hard is a necessary prerequisite but not sufficient; you may work long and hard and very seriously at organic chemistry or biochemistry and just not make it. In many first year biology classes (and even more so in engineering), the average is in the 50s, sometimes in the 40s. Remember that most of the kids in these classes were good students in high school. There may be some outliers but they’ll drop quickly. Everybody else in that class had good science grades in high school. And the average will still be very low. That’s the concept of “weed out”: the exams are designed to make students fail. If you can’t be in the top of your first-year classes, odds that you’ll pass organic chemistry are nil. Fortunately students take a lot of different classes so they can choose the best major for them.
In addition, you can’t juste “retake” the MCAT until you get the proper score. You can take it exactly twice, and the threshold for a second-time taker is higher than for first time, so essentially you have to get it right, right away. The test has three parts over 2 days.
You can read more about it here:
https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/mcat/about/422306/changing-the-mcat-exam.html
Even if you do everything right, it’s not a slam dunk. You have the interview, which will be based on your research/clinical experience (shadowing, volunteering, etc) and you have to train for that, too.
The reason people say premed engineering is not for the fainthearted is that med school admission depends on a high GPA, whereas engineering suffers from notorious grade deflation (ie., a 3.0 is a good engineering GPA… but not for med school) so you have to be very sure of yourself when you choose an engineering branch along with premed. You can also ask around when you choose your engineering specialty for one that isn’t the hardest - it’s still engineering, but it won’t be a herculean task to get to med school. Chemical engineering is rumored to be the hardest, but check with your university.

Yes, engineers followother people’s ideas - researchers. These researchers may have started out as engineers, worked a bit, and went back to school for a more advanced degree; with a master’s degree in engineering you move to management, with a PHD you are in research/development. Engineers often work in teams and those teams, together, put the researcher’s ideas to life, but they have to use their ideas too.
Physicians will never be replaced by robots :smiley: and this is reflected in the new MCAT and new premed core courses: the human factor is essential, which is why people say medicine is both a science and an art. You won’t be a lab technician, a medical examiner… you’ll work with living people who may not know themselves, may have ailments they don’t know how to describe, or can describe very well but in another language, have a different belief system than yours, will be drunk or dangerous or smelly, will be small and cry a lot, etc, etc.

30

Thank you so much for your response!

My family would like me to have my college decision locked in by Wednesday next week.

So either way - engineering or medicine - I should choose University of Arizona? Texas would be my dream, but 60K+ in the hole after graduation is a little iffy for any college.

31

How much of that $60K is loans/debt on your own shoulders? Surely not the whole amount.

32

I did not go overly in-depth in regards to my calculations, but the whole amount is likely to be close to that number.
Here are the costs (I did not qualify for financial aid, and I am out of state):

~55K for first-year costs
~25K for establishing Texas residency (purchase of property, is cheaper than spending 55K every year)
~27-30K for each of the next four years (I would like to study abroad, and at the engineering seminar they said that most engineering students graduate in 5 years, especially if they participate in a study abroad program)

On the low end, this comes out to about 188K. My dad is switching jobs this year (income will be much lower), so contribution will be minimal (25K for property, which is already a stretch, and probably somewhere around 10K in contribution to total schooling expenses).

For each consecutive year, the contribution will likely be around 15-25K. However, my family is not very willing to spend such a large amount of money, especially in the first year (and I can’t really blame them, it is a lot of money).

I know mechanical engineers make a good salary, but it certainly seems like a stretch to pay off that amount of debt. We would still need to pay at the UA, but the amount is minimal in comparison to Austin (probably less than 10K first year, and nearly free the next 3 years if I live at home).

A point my parents make (and it certainly makes sense) is that if I am so undecided between engineering and medicine, I should take the cheaper route should my interests change. The UA is inferior to UT Austin in engineering, but from what I hear from you guys, the UA is still a solid institution that would provide me with a bright future, should I choose engineering. My plan after engineering was to work for a few years, and then establish a start-up. At UT Austin I’d be in the hole, whereas coming out of the UA I could allocate the money I would have used to pay my debt into establishing a start-up.

33

[QUOTE=""]
I still plan to maintain a high-level GPA. In the scenario that I graduate with a 3.0 or sub-3.0 GPA (both relatively unlikely), medicine is still a possible pursuit, right?

[/QUOTE]

no.

Your GPA needs to be a lot higher to be med-school worthy.

34

An average competitive med school GPA is 3.5+ probably but you really should get A 3.7+ IF you are thinking about top notch med schools.

35

@mom2collegekids, @TheDidactic - Yes, I was aware that I need a good GPA for med school, and I am more than willing to work very hard in order to achieve a good GPA. I know college will be hard, and I am slightly anxious, but I felt as if I did a good job of preparing. I took as many AP’s as I could this year, and I have studied really hard (upwards of 11 hours some days), and I strive to be the best I can be. I am actually taught at an online high school, where I learn with near complete independence/low teacher help and still achieve a GPA of 4,0+. I know that high school is somewhat incomparable to college, but I still believe I am capable of achievement in college.

Thank you so much for your responses, by the way. You have no idea how much I appreciate the fact that you are willing to help me with such important decisions! (I am so happy this site exists!)

I would particularly like to know your thoughts on the questions proposed in posts #29 and #31 (basically, which college should I go to and how realistic are the prospects for my endeavors in engineering/medicine at each school).

36

Following up on post #31, you would take out a loan for the ~65K shortfall, with your parents as co-signers?

37

https://www.aamc.org/download/321508/data/factstable24.pdf can give you an idea of how GPA and MCAT score affect medical school admission.

More applicant and matriculant data at https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/ .

For cost and debt of medical school, take a look at:
https://www.aamc.org/download/152968/data/debtfactcard.pdf
https://services.aamc.org/tsfreports/

38

@Dunboyne - Yes, that is correct.

Given the circumstances, is UA or UT the better choice?

39

Well, check out those links provided by @ucbalumnus. Med school debt is burdensome enough as it is, without tacking on another $65,000. And don’t forget that $65K will become much more than that by the time you pay it off, due to interest charges.

The other thing is, UT Austin is attractive to you for its academic advantage in engineering, but what happens if you struggle with the engineering workload, and end up switching majors? There goes much of the reason why you enrolled at Texas, and the added debt starts to look more like a mistake. I understand you’re confident in your ability when you put your mind to something, and that’s a great thing, but college is a different ballgame, especially engineering.

UA is the safer option, in my opinion. If you can figure out a course of study at UA that matches your aptitudes and goals very well, while protecting for GPA/MCAT, I’m sure you’d be happy with your overall academic experience.

40

Alright, cool. I am going to put in my decision either tomorrow or Wednesday. The UA -especially the honors college - is not known as a poor or suboptimal program, right?