Engineering vs Medical School - Which is Harder?

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  • @joshuacharlery5826
    @joshuacharlery5826 3 ปีที่แล้ว +50

    Wow!!! An engineer who went to med school! I’m thinking about doing the same thing. I lost a couple brain cells in my Mechanical Engineering degree, but it was fun!

    • @INONAuto
      @INONAuto 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      how long was your mech degree?

    • @abdullahalharthi2429
      @abdullahalharthi2429 ปีที่แล้ว

      May I get to text or message you?, I'm in my last year of high school and I want to know more about Mechanical engineering

    • @matienyaneseokoma
      @matienyaneseokoma ปีที่แล้ว

      @@abdullahalharthi2429 Just got here, tougher than i expected but its more about adjusting

    • @abdullahalharthi2429
      @abdullahalharthi2429 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@matienyaneseokoma Thank you

  • @sgt.sargent3242
    @sgt.sargent3242 ปีที่แล้ว +16

    My mindset is that the pure difficuly of engineering will prepare me for the *other* difficulty of medical school. The point is to get through 1 difficult thing to pursue another difficult thing. Plus critical thinking and problem solving are never bad skills to have.

    • @jfar3340
      @jfar3340 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      wrong mindset. The fields are hugely different, very different kinds of challenges

    • @positivefraud3012
      @positivefraud3012 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@jfar3340how so

    • @Naomi-xu4hq
      @Naomi-xu4hq 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Medical school exams and some bars definetly is based on social sides and reviews as well

  • @lancercncs1822
    @lancercncs1822 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    2:00 This is not my experience. The core engineering classes are much harder than the easy courses you take in the first year or two. Thermo was easy. 1st year - 1.5 years was a cakewalk. My GPA definitely took a big drop in the last 3 years (5 year program). Aerospace Engineering graduate.
    Nevertheless, this is not a one-to-one comparison. You can't compare undergraduate engineering to med school (graduate school). A better comparison is pre-med vs. undergrad engineering. Or engineering grad school vs. med school.
    Engineering graduate school is BOTH MUCH harder than undergrad and MORE time-consuming/draining between going to classes, studying, HWs, and RA (research)/TAing.

  • @findev6330
    @findev6330 4 หลายเดือนก่อน +7

    Medical school is memory base exams while engineering you need critical thinking skills for exams.

    • @blueman-z1m
      @blueman-z1m หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      This is actually not true. Med students don't just memorize textbooks. You need to know how and why things are the way they are. If you mindlessly memorize a piece of information you really won't get away with it.

    • @haroldpierre1726
      @haroldpierre1726 15 วันที่ผ่านมา

      @blueman-z1m I beg to differ. As a former electrical engineer who later attended medical school, I almost flunked out I trying to learn medicine the same way I learned engineering. Fortunately, a friend helped me break these bad habits and kept forcing me to just memorize. I took his advice because he was acing every exam. I switched to a memorization-first approach, which turned things around, and I began excelling in medical school too. Understanding concepts is important in medicine, it doesn’t require the same level of intricate analysis as engineering.

    • @blueman-z1m
      @blueman-z1m 15 วันที่ผ่านมา

      @@haroldpierre1726 no I agree with you, I wasn't comparing it with engineering I was just saying that medicine isn't all about memorizing a bunch of textbooks and that's it. You eventually still need sit down and really understand why things are the way they are or else you will be stuck in a loop where you forget and rememorize a concept over and over again every time you come across it. Sure you may get good grades on your test but you can't fool yourself. But hey what made you go to med school if you don't mind me asking?

    • @haroldpierre1726
      @haroldpierre1726 15 วันที่ผ่านมา

      @@blueman-z1m It's a long story but I can give you the highlights. I became interested in EE after receiving a Radio Shack circuit kit. I thought I would go to college and make projects all day. Well, I quickly got disillusioned in my upper level classes of just more math. So, before graduating, I decided to pursue medicine and enrolled in pre-med at night.
      I graduated with my BSEE and began working as an EE. However, I started witnessing engineers getting laid off for the first time in large numbers. This was the 1991 recession. I concluded that this would be me in the future. So, I completed my pre-med courses and went into medicine despite being really happy with my engineering job at the time.
      I'm glad I went into medicine. There is a level of satisfaction with saving lives, impacting lives, etc. that I would not have with engineering.

  • @isleidaalmonte8150
    @isleidaalmonte8150 2 ปีที่แล้ว +9

    I’m an electrical engineer pursuing a masters in electrical power systems and with almost three years of work experience, but lately I have been very interested in medicine (psychiatry). Thanks for the video!

  • @luciusandrellius9817
    @luciusandrellius9817 2 ปีที่แล้ว +23

    Finally someone who has done both. Most everyone thinks medical school is harder but have never gone through engineering school or they went to into civil engineering and think engineering was easy. Chem E is no joke. I was in the dual degree program materials science and engineering with Chemical engineering and decided after one quarter to go back to just materials science and engineering. It was brutal. Just one engineering degree at a time is brutal especially if you have a part time job. The drop out rates speak for themselves. 40-50% drop out rate in engineering. That’s double the dropout rate of medical school. This is not by choice either. There are what are called the junior year weed out classes that will remove all but the smartest engineering students. If this guy says medical school is hard and went through Chem E then I believe him because Chem E is hard. I’ve heard elsewhere Medical school is more volume of work (which is hard to believe) but engineering school is harder material to learn. It would be interesting to find out what he thinks after he finishes medical school. I went to the University of Minnesota so don’t know how other engineering schools compare but our school had the slowest graduation rate in the country at the time. It took on average 5 years to complete a bachelors degree in engineering for the average student. We were ranked very high in the materials science and Chem E programs. I think in the top 3 for both in the country at that time.

    • @precocioussceptic4967
      @precocioussceptic4967 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      What is considered junior year? I'm in a different country and we don't use that terminology

    • @David.Eng.
      @David.Eng. 2 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      Civil is widely considered more difficult than chem e😅😂 Just look at the grade distributions for the courses at your university. They are both extremely difficult and should be respected, but civil has more difficult courses

    • @friktogurg9242
      @friktogurg9242 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Engineers are smarter. Period.

    • @madsea6719
      @madsea6719 4 หลายเดือนก่อน

      ​When you get into higher levels of civil, like contruction of skyscrapers and metals it gets abnormally tougher lol. Its difficulty skyrockets.

  • @manuelsteele8030
    @manuelsteele8030 ปีที่แล้ว +27

    I am an engineer with six master's degrees now working on a PhD - lol. I have a background in mechanical, electrical, biomedical and software engineering. I earned most of them while working full-time except the first one. I am very familiar with medical school and seriously considered going in the late 1990s when I was young. I have taken a summer orientation course for newly admitted medical students taught by advanced medical students and an MD/PhD. I did the lab work on gross anatomy with the medical students and dissected the head/neck and thorax. We used the classic "Netters" book. The MD/PhD came in to give lectures and evaluate student progress. I am well aware of the rigor.
    My opinion is that it really depends on the individual student's aptitude. A good analogy is the long version of the triathlon. I watched one triathlon where an elite swimmer won the swim event. No one was even close. But as the race progressed, the swimmer fell far behind in the biking and marathon running events. As I understand it, the elite swimmer finished far from the winners at the end. As an analogy, some people are good at extreme rote memorization for anatomy and physiology. And medical school also requires biochemistry and genetics. The reactions and structures and flow of electrons, thermodynamics, etc. get rigorous. There are people who excel in biochemistry. Medical school also requires strong communication with a focus on EXTROVERTED PEOPLE SKILLS to treat people who come from many "walks of life". Given those skills are noted, the cold reality is that some engineers are just not a match. Medical students often excel in subjects that are outside the realm of engineering. There are some engineers who would not adapt successfully to the regimen of medical school given the excessive reading and memorization required.
    But others can make the switch seamlessly. I met a board-certified surgeon in my medical device course. He told me he thought it was harder to earn a Master of Electrical Engineering than it was to complete medical school. My opinion is that it was true for him given his individual aptitudes. But I don't believe it's true for all engineers. It may be true for some. I can think of software engineers who would hate the massive reading that goes into rote memorization and dropout quickly. Similarly, I can think of medical students who would struggle badly with calculus of shape functions using Finite Element Analysis or data structures with binary search trees and prefix, postfix, etc. I knew a biochemistry major who had a phenomenally high MCAT score but couldn't handle calculus for Fourier Analysis and Laplacians using differential equations for electrical engineers. It's rare to find an individual who is genuinely good at all aspects of both medical school and rigorous upper-division engineering. I know a physician who struggled badly with calculus in HS and would not make it past the freshman year at elite engineering schools like MIT, UCLA, Michigan, Florida, Texas, etc. But she excelled in medical school and also had exceptionally good communication skills for patient interaction. A lot of engineers are not like that - built with personalities to interact with patients in crisis. There are exceptions though.
    This goes back to my analogy with the Ironman Triathlon. It's rare to find an athlete who can do relatively well in all three events to finish in the top 5% of the race. Hence, it's a good example for medical school versus engineering. Another analogy is Michael Jordan. He was excellent in the NBA but struggled in minor league baseball. Similarly, I know medical students who excel in medical school but struggled with basic calculus. I also know software engineers who likely would hate the massive memorization and struggle on anatomy lab exams. From having seen both sides, I think medical school should be focused on primary care. Many medical students go into eROAD for professional status and salary. Those obsessed with status often get the MD/PhD. It's overkill in my opinion. MD should be mainly for primary care like family practice which usually gets overlooked by aspiring applicants for residents. It's finally starting to change, but primary care gives the "biggest bang for the buck" in terms of preventive medicine and health economics. The high-paying and "high status" specialties of decades past just drove up the cost of medicine from the purview of health economics. I also have an MPH - lol. So, I know this stuff. To be fair, there are medical students who are not doing it for the money but the dedication. They tend to go into primary care. But historically, the pattern has been a preference for eROAD for money and prestige. A good scene is in the film "Malice" when the lead surgeon brags about his accomplishments and work regimen while in discussion with malpractice lawyers. He clearly wanted the prestige and money of being a specialist rather than doing primary care. Albeit fictional, that scene reflected a common pattern of eROAD as a preferred choice for medical students in residential matching.
    If an engineer really wants to switch to medical school, I recommend earning a quick associate's degree in allied health and taking the courses with those students. The lab work and review can prepare for medical school. Then work about a year in clinical health to see if you really like it. When I was in Denver, Red Rocks CC had a physician assistant program that could be done quickly. There are other allied health majors to get you prepared and exposed in a few short years to see if you really match with medical school. Patient interaction is a must. Can you handle the COVID-19 influx that recent clinicians had to deal with? Many physicians burned out and quit the profession. Some specialties like neurosurgery and OB/GYN are prone to malpractice lawsuits which can damage morale and reputations. So, use allied health to check ahead of time if you really match with an MD. If one wants status and high salary, a JD/PhD with patent litigation would make more sense for engineers rather than an MD. It wouldn't take as long, and the pay would be higher in that niche field. Just ask the engineering patent lawyers who litigated the "mobile phone patent wars" of the late 2000s and early 2010s - lol. Patent litigation is an ongoing need in the rapidly changing world of technology. Just look at how the Chatbot AI has evolved. There are now algorithms that can diagnose certain illnesses using AI with medical images which can replace some work for radiologists. Routine clinical diagnosis can be automated in some cases of radiology using python, C++, OpenCV, DICOM images, search algorithms of AI, etc.
    If someone doesn't like my post, just know this is an informal opinion based on personal life experience. There are always going to be exceptions to patterns noted above. Please note I am an informal blogger - not an enemy on the internet. This is not a formal document with compliance to a certain rubric found in scientific journals, formal periodicals, or a college capstone project. It's just an informal post. I just wanted to inject realism into young students who are pondering medical school. I've written thousands of pages of engineering documents in college and industry with strong performance reviews. For strict formatting of submissions to conference proceedings or formal graduate work, I sometimes use Overleaf with Latex math typesetting. I have used IEEE, APA, MLA, Chicago Style, etc. I usually use Latex plug-ins for MS Word to write advanced math equations for topics like continuum mechanics, finite element analysis, artificial neural networks, etc. I don't need to prove myself on an informal blog.
    The enemy of modern physicians would be the HMOs who dictate their practice. Worse yet would be the malpractice lawyers just waiting to destroy the physician's career to make money. One of the most infamous MD/JD malpractice attorneys was from my undergraduate Alma Mater, Notre Dame. That was Daniel Broderick, MD/JD of Harvard. After he accrued wealth as a malpractice attorney, he left his same-age wife for a much younger woman. Then his first ex-wife, Betty, murdered them both. There is an early 90s film called "The Betty Broderick Story" and a more recent crime series from a few years ago ("Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story"). As for enemies of engineers, there are plenty of layoffs going on right now. New engineering graduates are having a hard time getting jobs. The tech sector is currently struggling. It usually does that about every ten years going back to the 1970s. Read the blogs on "TheLayoff.com" to see horror stories of engineers who have gotten laid off by wealthy executives who see them as names on a spreadsheet - easy to get rid of to make a profit and please the "board". A common joke with experienced software engineers is the film "Office Space" - a comedy about corporate layoffs in 1999. Some joke it was actually a documentary with the layoffs shown in the film parallel to an irrational promotion of one engineer.
    Best wishes on medical school if that is what one really wants to do. As for me, I opted for a career in biomedical engineering. I work at Medtronic. I am fascinated with technology of the future and focus on applications of AI/ML to healthcare. I often study while listening to the soundtrack of Blade Runner - one of my favorite films of science fiction about futuristic robots. Or I listed to Hackers soundtrack, Westworld soundtrack, the Social Network, or albums of Boston fronted by an MIT engineer. Technology has overwhelmed my life's passion.

    • @taehunkim7148
      @taehunkim7148 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Thank you so much for sharing your invaluable experiences and perspectives!

    • @Turnpost2552
      @Turnpost2552 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Omg 5 masters degrees and you still dont indent and space your paragraphs. Shame.
      As a software engineer all we do is reading lol That is no way in h that is a reason to leave a field. lol

    • @Turnpost2552
      @Turnpost2552 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Honestly choosing a profession based on presitige is very 2000's and 2010's era. The ones with presitige are the one who look good. Nothing else more.
      You in software, great gl with outsourcing and chatgpt
      YOu in Medical field. great gl with pandemic and chatgpt
      You in engineering gl with chatgpt and also actually even getting a job.
      Just be good in your field and f the rest.

    • @manuelsteele8030
      @manuelsteele8030 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@Turnpost2552 It's just an informal blog with no formal rubric on formats. I've written thousands of pages of engineering documents in my career and got many favorable performance reviews on my technical writing. One senior software director gave me very high rankings on engineering documentation for FDA compliance regulations. In regards to reading in medical school, I was referring to rote memorization with the context of anatomical illustrations, medical terms, or biochemistry. For software engineers, I would recommend focusing on the people doing the massive layoffs right now - the CFO, CEO, CIO, etc. They are now doubling down on remote work, fiscal financial expectations, etc. Many great software engineers have been laid off recently at Meta, Google, Amazon AWS, etc. I'm just an informal blogger.

    • @Turnpost2552
      @Turnpost2552 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Naa bruv

  • @benjaminpostorino312
    @benjaminpostorino312 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    this upcoming year im going into my first year as a chemical engineering student and this video really helped me understand what kind of work I should expect

  • @helveticaneptune537
    @helveticaneptune537 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    Forget, engineering or medical school have you thought about going into modelling?

  • @trigonometrisk
    @trigonometrisk 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Would love an update to this video.

  • @joseaguilera5786
    @joseaguilera5786 2 ปีที่แล้ว +15

    Electrical engineering is probably the hardest

  • @ydavidzhu
    @ydavidzhu 12 วันที่ผ่านมา

    It's a worthwhile comparison but I think it's comparing apples to oranges.

  • @Turnpost2552
    @Turnpost2552 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Honestly every doctor should know how to lift and appreciate each muscle and bodybuild to build muscle.

    • @jfar3340
      @jfar3340 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      100%

    • @mohammeddashti7835
      @mohammeddashti7835 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      The reason i got into med school man🫡

  • @nelson.broj4112
    @nelson.broj4112 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Keep up the good work man. I have a question. I’m an industrial engineer working as a Consultant and I want to be a physician but I don’t want to quit my job yet. Are you working right now? How are you managing your time between med school and your current job?
    Regards from Peru!

    • @mydearriley
      @mydearriley 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Hello, were you able to make that jump?

  • @nann755
    @nann755 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    In medicine you need to be cram a shit ton of info to analyze and deduct a problem, while in engineering I think the info is more limited cuz you get to chose a certain of engineering and understand it rather than memorize to analyze it. I think this is the difference based on my humble opinion lol

    • @jfar3340
      @jfar3340 ปีที่แล้ว

      in medicine too you get to choose ''a certain of medicine and understand it''

    • @MrHkl8324
      @MrHkl8324 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      In medicine you just guess the name of the disease and match the pre defined solution (drugs) to it.

    • @jfar3340
      @jfar3340 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@MrHkl8324 thats not how it works

    • @nann755
      @nann755 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@jfar3340 tell that to a patient with SLE

    • @jfar3340
      @jfar3340 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@nann755 tell what

  • @marting6015
    @marting6015 4 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Medical school material is not hard. The time management aspect of it and understanding that every minute of your day needs to be accounted for is what makes it difficult. The volume of material is just ridiculous.

  • @WetWaistbandGaming
    @WetWaistbandGaming 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    This is an awesome insight

  • @Turnpost2552
    @Turnpost2552 4 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Tbh engineering as a major is not difficult its the gettong the job part and keeping that is the hard part

    • @shadowwalker4633
      @shadowwalker4633 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Depends on what an electrical engineer gets jobs even before graduating the field is way to wide you could work wherever you want

  • @FelixTheForgotten
    @FelixTheForgotten 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    It would be interesting to see an update on what med school is like 2-3 years in. You're saying that it's like you're constantly feeling like you are catching up. No wonder. You've studied a field that has very little in common with medicine. You are competing with people that have studied nursing or kinesiology or pre-med oriented undergraduate programs. Don't you think it is an unfair assesment or comparison?
    Engineering is difficult when you are starting and slowly got easier. When you will pick your medical speciality I am sure it will get easier. Also first year is meant to discourage. 2 weeks in is not a fair assesment.

    • @MrLegendra
      @MrLegendra 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I can answer this as a med student! There are a set number of required science classes you have to take to even apply to medical school (bio, chem, orgo, biochem, physics etc...). I majored in finance and took all those required classes alongside my finance classes. Additionally you have to take an medical school entrance exam known as the MCAT which is a beast of an exam requiring an insane amount of scientific and analytical knowledge. The bio majors don't take that many additional science classes besides the required ones (and its usually something relatively easier like genetics/marine bio/ environmental bio etc...) that is why a lot of med students choose bio. So being a bio major does not necessarily give you any advantage. Some of the top scorers at my school majored in degrees like history/English and art.
      Nursing is completely different as they are not required to take the more advanced science classes and their science classes tend to be more geared towards the nursing profession itself.
      No undergrad class will give you all you need to know for medical school. I learned everything I learned from my 1 year of biochem in undergrad in my first week of school.

  • @MasegoMolaole
    @MasegoMolaole ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Basically he said med school is harder

  • @szelokng3652
    @szelokng3652 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Hi I am currently in biomedical engineering and was planning on applying to medical school. What would you say is the number one factor that made you succeed as an applicants?

    • @VincentStevenson
      @VincentStevenson  3 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      View your app as a sales pitch and talk about what makes you unique - being an engineer set me apart from the other applicants who are mostly bio or chem, so I focused on how I would approach problems from a different perspective

    • @szelokng3652
      @szelokng3652 3 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@VincentStevenson Thank you! I have always felt that due to the hard math courses engineer's GPA will be slightly below the average pre-med student. Do you think that the medical committee will understand this aspect?

    • @precocioussceptic4967
      @precocioussceptic4967 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@szelokng3652 That's a great question. Vincent what was your GPA?

  • @anacervantes1981
    @anacervantes1981 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Chemcial engineering here too, trying to go into medicine 🙂

    • @TACOMAN1808
      @TACOMAN1808 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      Did you made it ?

    • @mahmoudmohamed422
      @mahmoudmohamed422 ปีที่แล้ว

      I can help you, I am already a 4th year medical student

  • @SatchelChannel
    @SatchelChannel 2 ปีที่แล้ว +7

    Yeah medicine is kind of boring. Until you actually go to become a surgein you spend a lot of time learning useless or unnecessary informations that won't help you at all... i mean, calculus has a direct application, similat ti linear algebra and differential equations. But learning every muscle or bone? Boring!

    • @Mind-spark01
      @Mind-spark01 2 ปีที่แล้ว +16

      How exactly do you want to become a surgeon without learning about the musculature or osteology of the body ?

    • @SatchelChannel
      @SatchelChannel 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@Mind-spark01 yeah that's important but chemistry, Citology and biology arent

    • @Mind-spark01
      @Mind-spark01 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@SatchelChannel aren’t Those A Level Science courses ?

    • @jamesbedukodjograham5508
      @jamesbedukodjograham5508 2 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      @@Mind-spark01 Becoming a surgeon without Anatomy or Physiology is very complicated my dear Friends.

    • @meowmeow4414-n3e
      @meowmeow4414-n3e 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      ​@@SatchelChannel Medicine is not for everyone. A surgeon without knowledge in anatomy and physiology ( which includes ***CYTOLOGY (not citology), chemistry, and biology) is a surgeon going to jail with a one way ticket.

  • @KarmaZeusBoi
    @KarmaZeusBoi ปีที่แล้ว

    Your voice is so soothing. You could do ASMR

  • @hamuzasebayiga1080
    @hamuzasebayiga1080 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    How is medical school now..