Help Choosing a Major at Alabama

springy179
Sun, 20 Apr 2014 00:31:02 +0000

Hello Everyone!

First of all, I would like to thank you for all of the help I have received during this process from reading this forum. I initially found out about the National Merit Finalist scholarship on CC, as well as the Computer-Based Honors Program (which I am now proudly a part of!!), as well as the wonderful research opportunities going on at Alabama.

I am trying to decide what I should major in. I love math and science, and I have been working on a medical research team for the past year developing software to do bone marrow biopsies for sickle cell disease patients. This project showed me that there is much beyond being a practicing doctor in the field of medicine, and I am now hoping to have a career in medical research or epidemiology.

This brings me to my questions… The three majors I am considering are Mathematics (Scientific Computing Track), Computer Science (Software Engineering Track), and Computer or Mechanical Engineering. I am coming in with 47 credits (even more if I decide to go the graduate school track instead of medical school and use my science APs for prereqs.)

How much more marketable would an engineering degree be than a scientific computing or software engineering degree be if I end up not deciding to go the med school route? I would like to be able to explore some fields outside of science while in college, and the number of courses required for a BE makes that more difficult.

How common is it to prepare for medical school while completing an engineering degree? What engineering degrees would be most useful to pursue a career in biomedical engineering?

Is it possible to use the 5th year of tuition in the NMF scholarship for the University Scholars MS program?

Thank you for all your help. If you can think of any other questions I should be asking, please let me know.