gksqor8

Does anyone know which major is better in terms of respect?
Like is regular bioengineering more highly regarded than biotech in UCSD?
Do graduate schools favor one over the other?

astrina

1. respect from whom? your choice of major should be based on how much it interests you, whether you're good at it, and whether you think it'll provide you with something to do after graduation.

2. no. by the time you've already said the word "bioengineering," you've probably already garnered the respect of your listener (unless he/she considers his/her major to be superior to yours), if that's what you were trying to ask.

3. well, it depends on what kind of graduate program you're going for. they don't care so much about the specifics of the major as they do your qualifications, how good you are at research, your letters of rec, and to a lesser extent, your grades and GRE scores.

don't pick your major with the sole intention of impressing other people.

strawburry17

Hi, I graduated from UCSD in BioE. For kicks, I'm just looking back at what it's like to apply, and giving a helping opinion.

in terms of respect, you'll get more "respect" from mechanical / medical device related jobs if you do bioengineering. and you'll be more apt for biotech / cell engineering oriented jobs if you do the biotech major.

some of my btech friends think their major is sometimes too specific to certain parts of their study, to be applicable to industry. ex. beng 123 is applying linear algebra to biochemical kinetics, which might be more specific to research than what is done at a biotech company. at least that's what they tell me. - really, i think the major is equivalent to "biochemical engineering" at other universities.

i don't know if grad schools favor one over another. i mean, they're just different disciplines. does one favor an EE major over an ME major? same response to that question.