Medicine or Engineering?

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Well here is the thing. To want to do Medicine at university, you have to be pretty dang determined, because it's arguably the most competitive course that you can apply for you know? So you have to think very carefully about why you would want to do medicine and whether it's really for you. I would highly recommend speaking to a teacher who perhaps has experience in the medical field or knows about applying for medicine etc. Good luck :smile:

Reply 21

emerl98

Original post by chocolatesauce

why do I have a weird feeling you're Indian

Loool I'm not indian.

Original post by supreme overlord

Further maths A2 is useful but not essential for engineering, I know a lot of people with engineering offers and only one takes further maths. You sound like you got sick of it because of the heavy focus? How do you know that wouldn't happen with medicine? Medicine's a long and intense course, do you have reasons beyond 'i could do this with my A levels'?

The best thing is likely try out your medicine work experience and see what you think. My sister decided on medicine over about three other courses she was debating between after work experience. I think without the experience you can't judge.

(also you could try engineering work experience, there's some around)

The thing is while I haven't gotten actual experience for engineering, I've been to different airline companies and been on different aircraft so I kind of have a feel of how the industry is. It seems pretty similar to what I've been doing at school with a few minor differences. But then people have also told me that what I'm doing isn't the engineering that I will be doing in university.

Original post by Don Pedro K.

I know quite a few people already in the medical field, and I've spoken to someone already and they told me to carefully review my choices. But this didn't really help much.

Is there anyone who is an engineer here that can give me a thorough description of what their day at work is like? Likewise, is there a doctor, surgeon, GP or Pathologist here that can give me a description of their day of work?

Reply 22

Smack

Volunteer Team

Original post by emerl98

Hey guys
I'm a Year 12, student, currently doing Maths, Physics, Chemistry and biology A-levels and an Engineering BTEC. I'm currently having problems deciding whether to go down an engineering or medicine route for uni. I go to an engineering based school, but after doing so much engineering, I'm starting to get sick of it. I don't understand a word that my teachers are saying, and I naturally suck at the practical things like drilling, sawing etc.

I originally was planning on doing an Aeronautical/Chemical engineering course but I'm really starting to have some doubts about it. The idea of being a doctor sounds more appealing to me and seems more fufilling, but I'm not sure on whether I should give up on engineering just yet.

How should I go about making my decision? Is there anyone else who has been similar before? If so, how did you make your decision? What are the pros/cons of both subjects?

If you don't like practical stuff or maths and physics then engineering isn't for you.

It's true that the engineering you're doing now probably isn't like the engineering you'd be doing at university, but then the engineering you do at university isn't really like the engineering you actually do when you work as an engineer.

Reply 23

ifyouseelaura

Unless you have a burning passion to be a doctor, medicine will be really difficult. Also, there are lots of other things that engineering might lead on to - management, banking etc.

Reply 24

+ polarity -

it saddened me how many people on my course had trouble using power tools, not gonna lie

Reply 25

Arieisit

Original post by + polarity -

it saddened me how many people on my course had trouble using power tools, not gonna lie

Why?

Reply 26

+ polarity -

Original post by Arieisit

Why?

Quotes aren't showing up :s-smilie:

sorry

We had quite a few design and make projects (or at least projects with a practical aspect) and some people were just clueless with the different tools we had to use. I suppose it's because I thought people would have learnt how to use them in school, especially in D&T.

Reply 27

Jai Sandhu

Original post by Ali97

Engineers can work on very different and exciting projects every other week and they have lots of opportunities to travel. A doctor's job sounds dull and repetitive.

A doctors jobs is the opposite of dull and repetitive, maybe a GP may be a bit boring but a surgeon is a very stressful job and the opposite of dull and repetitive.

Reply 28

emerl98

Original post by Smack

How different are they? Are they 3 completely different experiences or are they relatively similar?

Is there anyone here has done both and could give me an idea of what it was like from their perspective?

Reply 29

Smack

Volunteer Team

Original post by emerl98

I didn't do engineering at school, only at university (mechanical) and now work as an engineer.

As others have said, engineering at university is very theoretical, and mainly focused on applied maths/physics. Much of it is essentially an extension of the maths and physics you do at school, although obviously a lot harder. This is interspersed with things such as CAD, group projects, etc., but these certainly aren't the main focus of the degree. To get through an engineering degree, you've got to enjoy, and be quite good at, maths and physics.

Whereas on the job it's a little different. Graduates are generally surprised to find out that they use comparatively little of the maths and physics they were taught at university. And a lot of other things that were skimped on or not even taught at all play quite a prominent role, i.e. the whole non-theoretical side. So for example if you're in design like I am, then correct understanding and reading of engineering drawings is critical, and you've got to have a firm grasp about how to the thing you're designing is actually going to be manufactured or fabricated (so, for example, no putting bolts in places that a fitter couldn't reach them). Knowledge of materials, welding and inspection is also quite important.

So there can be quite a marked difference, depending on what you thought engineering was like before you got into it.