Which is harder Medicine or Engineering
- Thread starter GrindtooFilthy
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perfectblack999
All Star
Honestly depends on the person.
Intensity of concepts and immense workload over a shorter period of time vs a boatload of information over a long period of time.
Both require discipline and perserverence.
Intensity of concepts and immense workload over a shorter period of time vs a boatload of information over a long period of time.
Both require discipline and perserverence.
Yeah. Medicine is just a lot more information to commit to memory. That's why flashcards and highlighters are their friends!
There is no rote memorization in engineering. You learn and apply concepts. Concepts build on concepts. If people had to do that for eight years to become engineers, we'd have no native-born engineers in United States!
StrivingDaily
Rookie
I didn't, actually just graduated. I think medicine is harder cuz it's a lot of memorizing while engineering is applied knowledge, just my opinion thoi remember when my calc 2 prof took the piss at us and made solve all our answers using PROOFS oh man i was tight. told us not cheat sheets no nothing no calculators, no nothing surprised i escaped that class
some ig shawty ALEXA (@__v3nus) on Twitter
you get your masters?
My senior year most people just stopped showing up because we couldn't understand out professors lectures and our time was better spent studying so we could at least get D's on our exams.Engineering >>>
Most pre-med students would flunk out of an engineering major.
The flashcard-driven, memorization approach to succeeding as a pre-med major doesn't work in engineering.
If you have a solid system to commit shyt to memory, you can get through pre-med and med school.
Engineering requires more fundamental understanding of concepts and then the ability to apply those concepts. It's not about how hard you work or how much you commit to memory. You can know every equation in the book. But, if you lack fundamental understanding, you will still fail!
I'm pretty sure many engineering brehs on the board can tell stories of instances where they studied for weeks for a test, only for the professor to hit them with someshyt on the exam to test for understanding! All after the professor assured you that, if you study the notes and homework problems, it should be a piece of cake.
Study for two weeks to only get that 45/100 on an exam with the 45 being the high score in the class!
Professor handing back the graded exams like
Imagine going through that shyt for multiple courses per semester over the course of 4-5 years!
And that's just undergraduate engineering. Go for graduate engineering and the textbooks become even less helpful and the professors even less concerned about teaching and with thicker accents!
My wife is a physician, and she makes more than every engineer I know, and she's one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life, but she could give a darn about anything engineering related. Practicing medicine is way harder than actually being an engineer in my opinion.
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funkee
All Star
both of the bolded are largely false ideas people have about becoming and then being a doctor. Yes there is an incredible amount of information one must learn and memorize, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. If all it was was a memory contest or knowing just some facts, then nurses could run the hospital instead of doctors. Applying what you have committed to memory and knowing exactly what a piece of information means and how to apply it to each individual patient is where the art of medicine separates itself . There's a reason it takes years to get through and no one ever really masters it. Constant learning process.
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I'd argue engineering is just as much of a learning-applying profession.
Only difference is engineers don't operate on humans, so there's no long training and licensing process.
If we required engineers to go through eight years of school, do low-paid apprenticeships and forced them to take qualifying exams, I doubt we'd have many engineers in the United States. Academically, people just wouldn't be able to cut it or wouldn't want to go through 8-12 years of that type of rigor and sacrifice.
Can you imagine trying to study Aerospace Engineering for 8-12 years?
funkee
All Star
I'd argue engineering is just as much of a learning-applying profession.
Only difference is engineers don't operate on humans, so there's no long training and licensing process.
If we required engineers to go through eight years of school, do low-paid apprenticeships and forced them to take qualifying exams, I doubt we'd have many engineers in the United States. Academically, people just wouldn't be able to cut it or wouldn't want to go through 8-12 years of that type of rigor and sacrifice.
Can you imagine trying to study Aerospace Engineering for 8-12 years?
My undergrad degree is BSEE, so from experience I can agree about learning-applying when it comes to engineering as well, but it's that duration and incredibly voluminous knowledge base while having to apply that to humans that makes medicine that much more difficult.
All depends on the individual. I work with engineers and have figured out how to be an engineer on the job. I'll never get a PE license because I have no formal schooling but engineering is a lot of math and I'm good at math. Medicine I would fail just because I don't like gore blood guts seeing people suffer etc...
I said the same in an earlier post. The length of time and amount of information consumed needed to become a doctor is what makes it more difficult over the long haul.
But, the actual material isn't particularly difficult. You just have to be disciplined and willing to make sacrifices. And possess a relatively good memory or system of committing things to memory.
I don't care how good your memory is in engineering. If you cannot built concepts on top of concepts, you will suck. And you will fail. If you cannot grasp basic algebra, you will not be able to do trigonometry. If you cannot do trigonometry, you will not be able to do Calculus. If you cannot do Calculus, you will not be able to do advanced physics. If you cannot do advanced physics, you will not be able to do electromagnetics. If you cannot do electromagnetics, you will lack a fundamental understanding of circuit theory. If you lack a fundamental understanding of circuit theory, you will not be a particularly good circuit designer.
You may graduate with a engineering degree, but will get eaten alive and exposed in interviews for those high-paying engineering jobs at top companies.
Similar conceptual progression applies to all engineering disciplines.
Like I said above, if the mid-career salaries for engineers and doctors were equal and they had to go through the same amount of schooling and certification, we'd have very few engineers compared to doctors! The rigor associated with engineering would weed many people out along the way.
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Yeah and if you were 7 feet tall you'd be 6'12.
If you're talking about the money, nobody is beating out doctors as a whole. Not engineers, not lawyers, medicine runs the money table. 12 years of school for a start $200k and top out at 400k, or 4 years of school for a start at 50-70k and top at $120k?
If we're only talking about money, long-term, private equity brehs shyt all over medicine, law and engineering. Let's keep it 100%.
4 years of undergrad + 2 years of investment banking + 2 years of business school = private equity. 6 years of school and top out well above $500k.
We're talking about the difficulty of the academic coursework. Engineering is tougher, academically.
Medicine is tougher over the long haul due to the emotional toll, the personal sacrifices to get the training, etc.
Where or what region do you live/work? A lot of the IB guys I meet are in the six figures, but single six's, 100-180k. I live in Chicago. Hedge managers make double/triple six's 200,300,500k+, but those are the managers. Compared to a doctor coming out who can see high six figures, 150k+ right away, and if they're in specialty practice easily clear double/triple six's, then stay there until they open their own practice or retire.
Project managers in ME or CE top out around 150k and it's not really sustainable for them, lot of job hopping and networking just to keep up that pay grade.
levitate
I love you, you know.
As an Engineering graduate....
...Med School is significantly more difficult.
...Med School is significantly more difficult.
BaldingSoHard
Banned
I've got an engineering degree and medical is significantly harder.
People are only thinking of undergrad. Nothing in the engineering undergrad is going to come close to what a med student or medical resident has to learn and master.
This is a silly question, really.
People are only thinking of undergrad. Nothing in the engineering undergrad is going to come close to what a med student or medical resident has to learn and master.
This is a silly question, really.