Hey guys, I know this is preeety late to be asking this, but i guess it was kinda random and impulsive

I randomly decided to research a bit more on biomedical engineering, and after watching a lecture and quite a few youtube videos, it seems like a reaaaaly cool field to get into haha, i kinda always thought that because I was always interested in biology, physiology, health related things,. The main thing that kinda made me hold back from considering Elec & Biomed as a choice is the fact that i did pretty bad in 1D04 :l I got a 3... i got behind a few weeks.. had a pretty shitty attitude which gave me a pretty crappy mark, I didn't really care for the course and wanted to get rid of it by simply passing. Im getting a 7 in physics 1E03, although im not doing so great on the tests, and i got a 10 in Math 1ZA3, and ill most likely get a 10-11 in 1ZB3 and 1ZC3.

sooo yeah ending the life story, i have a few questions

- How are the Profs?

- How courses in terms of pace, difficulty and relevance to the field? (The two health sci courses look really interesting, along with bio and the of the medical electrical engineering courses)

- Am i at a huge disatvantage if i didnt do so hot in 1D04 (i got a 3) and physics ( I will get a 7) ? I dont like programming, and electrical physics is kind of a whatever, with the exception of a few interesting topics. Im mainly interested in the biology, bio instrumentation, medical imaging, and anatomy and physiology courses.

- Is there alot of math? Because that seems to be my strongest subject by far haha I love math

- I hear a lot of people bitching about Elec and Biomed, but ive seen that merely in comments on posts, i havent really seen any threads about biomedical engineering pertaining to what we learn in school. Im already fairly from a career point of view, and am not too worried about the job prospects.

- How does second year compare to third year? Looking at the courses, it really seems like "Biomedical Engineering" Begins in third year, considering Biomed and straight electrical students take pretty much the same courses.

- What GPA did you have in first year getting into biomed?


And thats it, im really sorry for the excessively long post, but its kind of a really late hunch, and i wanted to put all my thoughts here, Thank you SO much!

Profs are great, really nice (biomed ones so far I've met); even the elec profs are pretty awesome, with the exception of a few.

All the courses are pretty relevant to the fieldd as a whole, although sometimes you might be wondering...'why the hell am i learning this?'..... you'll see...

Your first year eng likes and marks don't really reflect how well you'll do or how much you'll like it; marks of course determine if you can get in, but you only have one course like first year physics. You have about 2-4 (depending on definition) courses related to programming, and the field as a whole really relies on computers a lot, and many elect grads go into programming fields postgrad, so you might want to take that into consideration.

Theres lots of math. You should do well in calculus, trig, and even those long annoying 'proofs' to really excel at things like fourier transforms, linear differential equations, etc, but not be too much of a math nerd, because a lot of things are just approximations.

What we learn really can be understood from reading the course descriptions in the undergrad calendar, but to get a better peek, take a look at the course webpages themselves or message somebody for enote samples (I think I have most of my undergrad notes)..

Biomed really begins 3rd year. Try to take the chem and bio courses during the summer if you can manage it to get a head start. Keep in mind that theres not really much to differentiate a lot of streams in second year, because you're just little babies at that point, you need to learn all the prerequisite material.

I don't remember my gpa, but the cutoff in my year was something like 8-10, if you don't get in and still really want to do biomed above all else, just 'shadow the program (take the courses you need and re-apply).

I hated physics 1e03 and think I got a 7 maybe. Has almost no application to electrical eng though. I found that I loved the elec parts of biomed.

As for programming...there is quite a bit. You will want to get a tutor to properly teach you C and java. There are 2 courses on programming in second year (2si4 and 2sh4) and one thats sort of has programming but is more hardware based (2dp4) which you take in third year.

I find there is a fair amount of math on the elec side, although its more about Fourier and complex algebra. That being said most of the "math" in biomed falls to 2z03 and 2zz3 which almost every engineer takes and will absolutely ruin and positive feelings you have for math.

Biomed does begin third year with biomed only courses. In seond year the only difference between biomed and elec is taking an extra course in first term (bio) and taking chem instead of 2FH3 electromagnetics in second semester. As for entry average, Its ALWAYS lower than what they tell you. They told me to aim for ~8. The entry was well under a 7 although I find many biomeds had 10+.

Biomed is a good stream. Third year can be.. challenging (more like tiring with lots of courses, none of which are all that difficult) . However its a great education.