<p>Do engineering companies recruit based on overall rankings, or based on the subspeciality rankings? The reason I ask is because I looked at the EE rankings, and University of Washington is T20, while Yale is like 35. But, as I’m sure you could guess, Yale is a MUCH better overall school than UW except maybe in a few engineering specialities, so would the top companies hire the grad from UW or the Yalie?</p>
<p>Also, what are the EE applications in medicine besides the brain and imaging functions? I really dont want to do imaging, but the brain would be fun, but I’m asking so I can know what else I can do in medicine with an EE degree</p>
<p>There’s a lot being done with EE and medicine in the field of functional electrical stimulation (FES). FES is essentially making electronic systems that activate paralyzed muscles to allow a person with a stroke or spinal cord injury to walk and/or use their arms and hands. Cardiac pacemakers and deep brain stimulation systems also require significant knowledge of electrical engineering. A lot of work is also being done now with interfacing technology with the brain and making prosthetics respond to signals recorded from the brain. I’m currently working in a research group that does this type of work, and there are several people who got bachelors or masters degrees in EE (and are now pursuing a PhD in biomedical engineering).</p>
<p>Not that I know of. The impression I have gotten about ChemE is that in general it is not very applicable to medicine. ChemE is a very industry focused major, although some knowledge of chemical reactions and fluid flow can be used in the design of artificial blood vessels, drug-eluting stents, and dialysis equipment. Whether you’ll have the background to go into this depends heavily on the focus at the school where you get your degree and whether you choose to get involved with medical research.</p>
<p>I would be careful about changing your major just because it sounds cool - it is still a ton of work. The great thing about medical research is that it is mostly unique - but because nobody has done it before, it can be very challenging. I would encourage you to look into biomedical engineering as a major if you are very interested in this stuff - especially if the school has specialty sequences that would allow you to focus on biomaterials, bioelectricity, biomechanics, etc.</p>
<p>"Electrical Engineering - for students wishing to study the design and development of medical devices, signal processing, and medical imaging. </p>
<p>Chemical Engineering - for studies of transport within physiological systems, drug delivery, and development of engineered tissues. </p>
<p>Mechanical Engineering - for studies of the mechanics of the human body in health and disease and applications to medical devices and orthopedics. </p>
<p>Materials Science - for studies of biomaterials that are designed to interact with living tissues at the cellular and molecular level and tailored to affect tissues in a prescribed manner. "</p>
<p>Well, the truth is, your first question is probably irrelevent. Most engineering companies tend to hire by location first, for the simple reason that most engineering companies (like all companies) are small to medium size regional companies that simply don’t have the resources to recruit nationally. Hence, a company located in the Pacific Northwest would (unsurprisingly) prefer to recruit from UW over Yale, whereas a company located in the Northeast would prefer the reverse. </p>
<p>You also have to factor in the other part of the equation. Companies are not really looking for the most qualified possible people. Not exactly. What they are really looking for are people who are good enough to do the job AND who would be satisfied in doing it. A large chunk of personal satisfaction is wrapped up in simple location - i.e. if you get used to living in a certain area, you tend to want to stay there. So if you’re in the Pacific Northwest, you might hire a guy from Yale only to have him find out later that he hates the area and wants to go back to the East, so then he quits. At least with the UW guy, you know that the guy has spent 4 years in the area so at least he’s somewhat familiar with the region. Vice versa if we are talking about the East.</p>
<p>I agree with the above 2 posts. Go to any career fair and you’ll see that there are in fact only a few nationwide companies, and the rest is dominated with local companies.</p>