Have a student who likes biology (has mentioned genetics in passing) is a good artist, has taken career assessments that say “engineering” would be a good major. I am engineering-centric (I’m an EE, my oldest is an ECE/CS, my middle is a 3rd year ME), but I don’t want to push my tendencies on them.
They have gone to summer programs at SCAD and NC State - art and design schools. Got a shrug and an “it was ok” from each - with design being better than art. Going to Clemson this summer to do a Biology/Genetics camp.
Student is a rising senior - so time to figure out where to apply. A little background - student will get both a HS diploma and an AS 2 year degree at the same time. May consider a BS/MS of some sort to fill 4 years. Is NOT interested in anything medical - and in reading the forums - it seems pure biology has a lot of pre-med.
Personality is introverted and responsible. Thinking a school with a lot of options (including engineering) to have the flexibility to shift gears. However, since they will already have a 2 year degree with all their gen ed complete, would love to start in the right “vein” if possible.
Looking for programming suggestions, degree options, to use in our search for potential schools to apply to. Some things we’ve looked into: Biology, Integrative Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Biomedical Science
If you are looking for college suggestions…please do a chance me/match me thread. Answer all the prompts. This will give folks a better idea in terms of college suggestions.
Please include any geographic preferences and your annual college budget.
@lkharvey I can relate! My D26 also has interests in biology, engineering, art and design… and she’s also struggling with this question!
I understand why you might want to separate “which major” from “which college,” but actually these questions are more intertwined. The colleges and universities that your student is targeting will make a difference in how much they need to figure out in advance, and how much flexibility they’ll have once they start college. At liberal arts colleges and many private universities, students have plenty of time to explore and choose a major. At other schools such as large publics, and especially in engineering, students apply to a specific major in order to be directly admitted to the major or engineering college, and it can be more difficult to switch (especially to highly impacted majors).
So I agree with @thumper1 that you’ll probably get the most benefit from doing a full “chance me” post.
I agree doing a chance me thread would help posters make better suggestions.
But, I wanted to comment on graduating high school with an associates degree. Many private college won’t give any credit for DE courses, so there likely won’t be much, if any, opportunity at these schools to graduate early. Some may allow certain gen eds to be fulfilled, but taking a higher level course would be required.
Relatively more public colleges give credit for DE courses, but it’s not common that those with an associates degree would knock two full years off their bachelor’s degree, unless perhaps it’s a school that has an articulation agreement with the CC where your student took their DE courses.
These things will require some up front research to help create a list, especially if you are wanting/prioritizing a less than 4 year commitment to complete a bachelor’s degree.
Not looking for college suggestion specifically. Looking for majors that are related to biology.
Engineering has to be an option at whatever school is chosen, so not likely to choose a liberal arts school (I know there are a few that have engineering).
I am the parent - and I am not necessarily trying to reduce the number of years of school - just realize that a lot of the classes that normally would be taken in freshman and sophomore year - will already be done. (And we will be looking for colleges that recognize some or most of those classes) Realistically, I expect it to shave off a year - so a BS/MS may be a good option.
We are trying to identify majors to research with this thread. We don’t really care about college rankings and we will be weaving in cost/merit to selection - after finding majors. So I’m not sure about a “chance me” at this point.
One obvious issue might be to dig into this a bit more.
In terms of “medical”, the most obvious thing that comes to mind is being doctor. This involves dealing with people, including quite a few sick people.
However, there are also quite a few options that are medical related but do not involve direct patient contact. Some involve lab work. There is a lot of biomedical research that involves as an example growing cells in a lab and then trying to do something with them. Finding chemicals that inhibit cancer cells is one example (which involves someone first growing the cancer cells). There are lots of other examples. There are lab jobs that are routine, and there are lab jobs that involve cutting edge research. One definition of “research” is “you might fail”, so a significant part of research is to figure out what went wrong when (not if) something goes wrong. There are chemists and biochemists who use software to model organic chemicals to try to find ways to turn on or turn off specific hormones or genes. There are a lot of options that do not involve dealing with patients. There are also lots of options that involve combinations of skills. Someone has to design and program robotic surgery systems, and CAT scan machines, and MRI machines, and a lot of other stuff. There is a need for lawyers to write the patents related to all of this.
One issue is that there are so many options.
Both daughters had majors that overlapped a lot with premed requirements (one got her DVM last month and is a veterinarian, the other was a biology major and is getting a PhD in a biomedical science). They both knew quite a few premed students. They took a lot of the same classes as the premed students. Neither however ever did any shadowing in a human medical environment.
This might describe my daughter’s entire PhD program (including her) and most of my coworkers as a high tech / math / CS person.
One daughter won an award in high school, and got to attend an event where the art was displayed of everyone who had won an art award. Her reaction was “Wow these are good, how could I ever compete with this?”. She decided to take a different path in life. This is probably a good thing since making a living as an artist is very tough.
At the point that they had finished their junior year of high school, neither daughter had any idea what they would want to do for a living. I similarly had no idea what I wanted to do at that point. This is normal. For high school students who do know what they want to do for a living, the vast majority will change their minds, and many (or most?) will change their mind several times. This is called normal.
I think that this is a good thing to do.
When students get to university they get exposed to a lot of things that they had not been exposed to before. Generally they figure it out one way or another.
Very true. This might be a good thing for a student who wants to explore multiple options and is not quite sure what they want to do with their life. Of course this means that when setting a budget we do not want to assume that a student will graduate early.
I am wondering whether having a child who is very smart but who does not know what they want to do with their life is a reason to be a bit cautious when planning finances to pay for university. As some examples: When in university I knew someone who took an extra year due to a late change in major. A bit more recently I know someone who got a law degree, decided this was the wrong path for him and went back and got a master’s degree. I have known several people who got master’s degrees to allow a modest change in career path (one example was someone who got a bachelor’s degree in math, and then got a master’s degree in acoustics – apparently acoustics uses so much math that this is a reasonable thing to do). I know a few people who got engineering or CS degrees and then went to law school. I am hoping that most of these people had parents who were prepared for the additional expense. I think that a bachelor’s degree in biology can similarly lead to a master’s in any one of a variety of related fields.
Of course when a student is still in high school it is very speculative to guess how any of this will come out. We all figure it out over time.
Yes - this - no patients, lol. I suspect research is more her interest. Honestly, with her love of animals - I truly thought she may do DVM - but got a no to that too. Medical “adjacent” is definitely an option.
Rather than looking for majors related to biology, maybe start with looking at interests. It’s ok to start with biology (or other major) and spend time observing, interviewing various professionals, interning etc. One of my kids was a biology major who currently works in a genetics field…if you have any questions.
Depending on the universities your student is targeting, if it is important for engineering to be an option open to them, they may need to apply to an engineering major.
However, there can be more flexibility if your student is targeting either highly selective private universities (where a student can choose any major), or moderately to less selective public universities (where these majors are not as impacted and it’s easier to switch).
Here is my free advice. Choose a college that has the following:
Student doesn’t declare a major until junior year (officially).
College has a strong core course requirement which means that students are required to take courses across a number of different disciplines. Some students find something that really piques their interest.
Find a college that allows and encourages double majors.
Consider that some double majors might require some summer courses.
My own kid did these things. The kid applied undeclared. Declared engineering as a major during sophomore year (had taken the same course sequence prior as engineering majors). But then the kid picked up a second major in biology. There were a couple of kinks in the plan as engineering was in the college of engineering which did not require a foreign language in college. Biology was in the college of arts and sciences which did require a foreign language…but the college worked with the student to help facilitate this.
And please remember a couple more things:
Most college students switch majors multiple times.
College major doesn’t necessarily align with careers.
Your student is a high school student now, and there are careers that will become available that don’t even exist now.
Agronomy, sustainability and all the conservation disciplines, marine life, food supply innovation. All the “population level” health careers-- biostatistics, epidemiology, etc. Tons of policy type roles relating to water, habitat, recycling and its pitfalls (does the ink from commercially produced packaging end up in the human body in some way and if so, how?) etc.
I agree with the advice not to worry too much about an actual major. There are people doing cool things with their degrees that weren’t even on their radar when they went to college and certainly not HS.
I think finding a college where you don’t have to show up on day 1 aligned with a department and a particular degree is important for an undecided kid. I think finding a college where switching isn’t a hassle is important. I think finding a college where exploration is “the thing” freshman and sophomore year is important.
The rest will work itself out. Your kid will take an intro to Anthropology class (for example) and realize that developing models of what early humans looked like is the true calling (a discipline relying on bio, genetics, art/design, history, etc.) and then it’s off to the races. Or will take an agronomy class and then join a professor’s team developing a new soybean seed which uses less water and no pesticides and you’ll watch proudly as they re-engineer the diet and habitat of billions of people on earth!!!
There are lots of tracks within wildlife bio, but I don’t think it’s a great choice for someone that doesn’t like to be outdoors. Even if that isn’t where their job ends up, a lot of their courses will be in the field.
S23 is a wildlife bio major focusing on human/ carnivore coexistence and uses quite a bit of engineering. He is currently on a research team studying how cattle grazing affects the ecosystems of federal land, which requires the use of geospatial information systems (his minor). He ends up having to do most of his own coding. He’s also using engineering to create an AI based system to mitigate carnivore/livestock interaction.
If she likes animals, but isn’t outdoorsy, zoology and animal science are bio-centered
I thought genomics looked really interesting, but it tends to be more of a grad concentration.
There are lots of food systems related majors. At large schools, there are often bio majors in both the School of Life Sciences and the Ag School. Of those we visited, the ones in the Ag schools seemed more experiential and broadly focused, while the ones in the Schools of Life Sciences seemed very lab-focused.
Yes it does…but biology is not only premed. During undergrad my daughter traveled the east coast doing fish research, worked at a water facility on campus and was involved in water studies, had a research position in a lab researching a specific disease, and was involved in public health.
This is why I suggested not worrying about a major right away. Take interesting classes, talk to people, explore, etc.
If engineering is a consideration, be aware that engineering programs/schools at some colleges can be hard to switch into after admission/matriculation. Also engineering programs typically have coursework that is sequential in nature. In contrast, switching out of engineering is not typically difficult. So if engineering ends up being a serious option for this student, think about starting on that path.
I suggest Chemical Biology, a discipline that uses chemical tools to study biological questions. Gene editing is but one example of the many exciting applications that are credited to these researchers.
@OP, like others said, make sense to apply as Biomed Engineering major, since it will be harder to transfer into school of Engineering from other majors. But be aware of secondary admission for many Engineering schools, such as uDub, Purdue, TAMU and etc. Since your kid already took most of GE classes, it would be harder to get a high GPA in first year and Biomed Engineering is such highly impacted major. You may want to look into colleges with direct admit to major such as UCs. Good Luck.
An engineering-adjacent field that also includes both bio/chem and design is Packaging Science. Students study the design aspects of packaging, the mechanical and biochemical aspects of protecting/preserving the products being packaged/transported, and the business/advertising aspects of packaging. Programs are relatively rare and grads are highly sought-after and well-paid. Clemson has this major: Clemson University | Packaging Science Degree
Then there are the more computational options - bioinformatics and other CS/data science-adjacent programs; would your kid like the more computer-oriented fields?
Lots of good options. As others have said, it can be important to get an early start on engineering if keeping that option open is desired.
More specifically, if the college courses were taken with accelerating college graduation in mind by covering specific major and general education requirements for a bachelor’s degree (like how transfer students would need to plan college courses at their initial college), rather than most high school students who take college courses for general interest or fulfilling high school graduation or college admission requirements.
