<p>It seems that the overall view is that chemical engineering majors are better off in the job market than bioengineering majors. But bioengineering majors need to know transport concepts and thermodynamics, just like chemical engineers. In fact, these disciplines are so similar that many schools combine the chemical engineering and bioengineering departments. At Pitt, we offer a dual degree in chemical engineering and bioengineering. So, what puts bioengineers at a disadvantage? (I’m thinking of bioengineering as a grad school major. Current undergraduate in chemical engineering.)</p>
<p>Charman20 - I posted about this before on the engineering thread. The short answer is that bioengineering curricula aren’t standardized; while bioEs SHOULD learn thermo and transport, many BioEs don’t. Employers know that, and they also know that a chemE will definately know these things. If employers knew that BioEs had the same theoretical background as chemEs AND understood basic physiology, cell biology and biochem, they would probably have an advantage over chemEs in pharma and biotech. </p>
<p>The grad school route is different; there are very few places where all the chemical engineering grad students take the exact same set of courses. Your advisor and your research become far more important than your degree.</p>
<p>calkidd, i would really like to know which school does not require Thermo for BME majors.</p>
<p>UC Berkeley makes at least one</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins has the #1 BME program and it doesn’t require Thermodynamics.</p>
<p>I suggest heading over to <a href=“http://www.eng-tips.com%5B/url%5D”>www.eng-tips.com</a> and looking at their forums…that forum helped me a lot in understanding what engineers do, their troubles etc. etc. good info</p>
<p>are you a student at berkeley? because it is highly unlikely that they don’t require thermo. at umich, my friends in aerospace are required to take thermo, its not called thermo, but they split the thermo class into two parts and fit it into two classes.</p>
<p>I graduated with my BS from Berkeley in Bioengineering. We were required to take one semester of “biophysical chemistry” (chem 130A) that sort of touched on thermodynamics. It was nowhere near as rigorous nor as thorough as the thermo class I took in the chemE department (chemE 141).</p>
<p>wow. . . . . .(i only typed the periods because i can’t post if i didn’t type it)</p>
<p>I guess Berkeley has changed since you were a student there calkidd. <a href=“http://bioeng.berkeley.edu/undergradprog/corecourses.html[/url]”>http://bioeng.berkeley.edu/undergradprog/corecourses.html</a>
BioE C105B Thermodynamics & Biothermodynamics is a core core course for many BioE concentrations at Berkeley.</p>