Questioning Engineering.... Help from the more experienced?

[hobbitle]

Hi guys,

I am 26 and this year have gone back to uni with the intention of doing B-SCI / M-ENG (Biomedical) at UoM over the next 5 years.
I feel like I have the right brain/personality/temperament to be an engineer which is why I chose it instead of straight science/medicine or something; but I am here in Semester 2 of First Year and I'm questioning it a bit.

I love life sciences, I have a curiosity for biology and chemistry, a curiosity about diseases and the body and the 'bigger picture of life' sorts of things. But at the moment, I'm taking 2 maths subjects and 1 engineering subject (which is also heavily maths, although quite enjoyable in its practical application); and I just feel like I'm drowning in a sea of maths, which I'm fine at academically, but I feel like studying maths all the time is inhibiting on my curiosity in the more life science fields....

Obviously engineering is heavily maths oriented but do you think that perhaps as the years progress and I have built a better foundation of mathematics that it might stop dominating my study/subject material and I might be able to do more of the biology aspect of Biomedical Engineering? 

To be clear - before jumping to the conclusion that I should do more of a pure science major instead of Eng - I really enjoy the practical application of engineering (as discovered in my Eng subjects) but am currently just feeling swamped by the mathematics. 

Any advice from the people who are a little further down the track would be great, thanks in advance.

[hobbitle]

Hey there BasicAcid,

I too am hoping that the 3rd year of the BSci and the Masters will be a bit more practical based but I have been watching my boyfriend do the Masters in Mechanical Eng and it just seems to be a whole lot of maths!

At the moment I am taking two maths subjects, Calculus 2 and Linear Algebra.  I had to take Calculus 1 last semester but since you are taking Spesh, you won't have to.  I didn't do high school in Victoria, and it was 10 years ago, so I don't remember that well what we did, but essentially Calculus 2 is an extension of Spesh without the probability/statistics (so basically an extension on complex numbers, trig, hyperbolic trig, integration, differentiation, which all lead towards solving first and second order differential equations);

and Linear Algebra stems from the pretty basic idea of matrices, vectors and linear relationships that you will have done in Spesh.  Linear Algebra is pretty conceptual and you really need to think abstractly about maths - but I can't say how much it related to Spesh.  I think it's pretty new for most students and it forms the foundation of most engineering disciplines.

Obviously Engineering Systems Design 2 (another subject I'm taking) is not specifically maths but is somewhat maths heavy, just with more practical application.

Hope this gives you some idea?

[hobbitle]

Sure, there are career advisors, and I have an appointment with one next week - but nothing like hearing it from someone who has experienced first hand
There's lots of support in the uni environment in every aspect - academically, career-wise, counselling, etc etc.  Whilst the information isn't spoon fed to you as it often is in school, you're definitely not on your own.