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Courses are challenging--get ready; small classes; excellent professors; No TAs; excellent Ex-tern program for sophs-shadowing in January; many opportunities to perform research on campus; a strong Pre-Health advisory; alumni from the medical professions who visit campus and want to help by their presence there and by their talks with current students; Pre-Med is inaccurate for a description--Pre-Health is a better name for what you will encounter as Bucknell is broad-based in it's approach--you're getting a Liberal Arts training in a university setting which I believe is a plus; few if any cut throat students--everyone (people are great here-if you are nice you'll fit!) works to help you towards your goal--helping others; get ready for challenging Physics courses as Bucknell is an Engineering school as well;it is what it is--and it is what you ultimately will make of it if you are going the Pre-Health (Pre-Med) route;do not underestimate that you will be challenged despite whatever your record was in high school as an "academic" student. Hopefully, you are someone who looks beyond the coursework and sees yourself as a person who wants to help others overcome their health concerns. Just my take after two semesters. Peace.
I'm currently a high school junior and am interested in majoring in biomedical engineering while completing the pre med courses at Bucknell. Is this advisable, or should I do the traditional Biology/Biochemistry or other science major? I ultimately want to go to medical school but want to have a backup degree if I decide not to. At the same time, I don't want to make it harder to get into med school by taking a more difficult route while majoring in BME. Any advice?
Everyone goes about this in a different fashion--and really the decision is yours to make. Bucknell's advisory for Pre-Health students is excellent and the professors can help you put together a program that will meet your needs for both biomedical engineering and the Pre-Health/Med courses that you will meed to prepare for post graduate work. I was attracted to Bucknell because of the broad based liberal arts courses that I would be required to take. You can plan your biomedical engineering courses around the traditional Biology courses and satisfy the requirements for both courses of study. Remember that biomedical engineering will be part of the Engineering School at BU and you will be taking courses required for engineering as well. Go into it with an open mind--Bucknell has a great resource for its students in the Center for Career Development (CDC)--utilize their services--especially the Extern Program during your sophomore year. I think the key is to explore those areas of study that you never thought you would before you entered college. That's the whole point of going to a school that has a strong liberal arts base. Before I came to Bucknell--I never thought that I would be taking courses in East Asian Studies--but I have taken two this year to fulfill my LA requirements and I have become fascinated by those courses of study. I think that if you are interested in medicine you have to be inherently interested in other people, how they live, what they do, and what motivates them. I have enjoyed all of my courses during freshman year at Bucknell and I have been able to make the connection within the framework of the courses of how all of the things I've learned have been connected to life. Med School will be hard to get into--the acceptance rate is less than 6% for everyone. Investigate all the venues of study--you'll find your passion--and if you truly become interested in pursuing a medical school education after Bucknell--I think that you will be well prepared to do so. As a junior--don't stress out--try to take it one day at a time--just do your best to keep an open mind. Know that you will change not only between this year and the end of senior year--but also, you'll change many times during your four years of college. You appear to be pretty focused in your life about what you would like to do--and that's great! I hope you'll think about coming to Bucknell--it's a great place. Peace.
I'm not sure what LA is (maybe liberal arts?). I'm a rising senior at Bucknell. I'm pre-med, have taken the MCAT, and have applied to medical school. I'll be interviewing in the fall. Overall, I'm satisfied with Bucknell. I had a 3.7 GPA, which is a little bit above average for MD schools. I did the JanPlan at Geisinger, which was arranged through Bucknell. That was a plus. If you have specific questions, email me. Han14tra@aol.com
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