My D was accepted for the Biomedical eng program at Penn State. How is the program? Does anyone have inputs that can help her decide between UCSC computer science vs Penn State biomedical eng program. Thanks.
Not quite an apples to apples comparison. It sounds like she’s not quite sure about her major. Penn State has an excellent reputation in the engineering industry and there’s a new building on campus just for biomedical and chemical engineering. I can’t speak to the CS program at UCSC, but biomedical engineering at an undergrad level can be limiting regardless of where you study. There’s lots of growth in the field but it still makes up a small percentage of some of the broader engineering degrees like mechanical or chemical. It’s my understanding (as we investigated this major previously) that you are better off majoring in mechanical and then adding the biomedical engineering minor – and then go to graduate school for biomedical engineering. Due to the nature of biomedical engineering, it’s my understandig you really need to pursue it at the graduate level. Look up employment data via BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) to see the overall volume of jobs available and potential growth between all the different engineers. Biomedical engineering jobs can be filled by mechanical engineers, but mechanical engineering jobs (of which there are tons) cannot be filled by someone who just got the degree in biomedical engineering. I encourage your daughter to do research on this…and just know that PSU is a wonderful, but very rigorous engineering school. She’ll have to hit the ground running and it won’t be an easy degree to earn.
@Sophley you are absolutely right that my daughter is not sure about her major. She is inclined towards CS but likes the fact that Penn State is a well reputed institute. She is torn between the two schools and the two majors. Thank you for the helpful tips. I will ask her to do more research in the various Eng programs before she makes a final decision.
@CosmicPower just remember first two years she will be taking engineering required courses so I would think she can easily change majors in engineering at Penn State
She could also try computer science at PSU.
@CosmicPower and to add to choice of majors. My daughter is majoring in computer engineering and is heavily recruited by biomedical companies (I am pretty sure that CS is as well). Your daughter may want to investigate her possible career paths and choose the college that will allow her the opportunity to figure out her path within the next year. At PSU yes most of the students take similar ETM requirements for engineering- but in order to graduate within 4 years you need to organize your path from the start (or be able to take classes over the summer). Fairly confident that will be the case with every engineering degree- some more so then others. Good luck to your daughter in her decision making process.
Thank you everyone for the great advice and insight !