[Kovich1210]

Hello everyone.

I'm about ready to apply to Penn State University and I need to finalize my decisions and get a firm understanding of how everything will work. My career goal is to work toward the combination of man and machine in an attempt to create a greater, more advanced entity. Therefore, I'm thinking that a major in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology will be suitable. Perhaps a minor in Chemistry or something. Does this sound reasonable?

Now, for my graduate degrees - the Penn State Hershey Medical Center offers a Masters in Biochemistry, so I am assuming this would be the next logical step. After that, I see an available MD/PhD Program, which really fascinates me.

So my question is: Am I understanding the flow of education properly? Am I incorrect or missing something here?
My other question is then: Is Biochemistry a fitting major for what I want to do? Or would I be better off in something different?

One last thing, and it is sort of unrelated - how exactly does a Premed major work? Would that be at all applicable for my career goals? Just curious. ;)

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.

P.S. I realize that plans might change in the future, but I'd just like to have an idea of what I'll be doing. I'm not necessarily saying all of the above is going to be a concrete plan.

[A Tripolation]

Yes, you have the undergraduate/grad system figured out pretty well (I myself am a junior in college). Once you obtain your Bachelor's degree, you can then apply for the graduate program, and from there obtain your master's degree, and your PhD, in that order.

Also, while biochemistry is a suitable major, you might want to minor in Applied Mechanical Engineering or some other such thing. As an engineering major, I can tell you that what you want to do will most certainly need engineers. But I'm not certain if there is such a thing as Biochemical Engineering...maybe. I'm sure some of the other more knowledgable members of this forum can help with that.

And I'm also not sure about the complexitites of med school.

Hopefully this helps some :)

[Kovich1210]

Yes, you have helped quite a bit, thank you. :)

There is a Major offered by some schools (not Penn State, but MIT offers it, for example) called Biomedical Engineering. However, PSU offers something called 'Bioengineering' but I believe that isn't quite in tune with what I want to do, though I'm not entirely sure that there is no application whatsoever. Perhaps someone here is more familiar with this than I am.

You referenced taking a minor in "Applied Mechanical Engineering" - would that be the same as an Engineering Mechanics Minor? (It's the closest thing I see that PSU offers and it's located here.)

This post has been edited by Kovich1210: 16 September 2009 - 05:09 PM

[A Tripolation]

Yes, Applied Mechanical Engineering is the same thing as Engineering Mechanics. Both are practical applications of Mechanical Engineering, IIRC.

Biomedical Engineering is more along the lines like the creation of the artificial heart *to note a fairly recent and famous example*. These guys are insanely knowledgable, as they design a lot of the machines that hospitals and doctors use. But, unless I am mistaken, it wouldn't be exactly what you were looking for.


To tell you the truth, what you want to do is fairly unique, and there isn't really a general major that you can choose that is specialized to your desired education. Certainly bioengineering would help you and provide a lot of core information, but I'm not quite sure as to where you would find a program that you are looking for. Mainly because engineering sticks to what currently exists! :D But that is not to say that they dont create new things, they most certainly do. I just don't know what field would best suit you.