BME or Microbiology

LBowie
Sat, 28 Jul 2012 07:40:23 +0000

Definitely microbiology. When I think of biomedical engineering, it is more along the lines of biomedical devices. I actually was confused myself on “science” vs “engineering” when I was applying to college and started off as an “undecided” engineer. I soon realized that I really was more interested in science (figuring out how things work from scratch) than engineering (designing devices using principles of science) and transferred out of the engineering school at my college after my freshman year into the college of arts and sciences to be a biology major (I later switched to chemistry, and graduated with a chemistry degree and bio minor).

As a biomedical engineer, she would probably be required to take a lot of computer programming, math, physics courses, along with some biology. As a microbiology major, she would still need some math and physics, but she would take chemistry, biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, micobiology, etc. It would be a much greater biology and biological organism focus than engineering.

I would strongly encourage her to look over the course offerings and programs of study (required courses) at the universities she is interested in for the majors she is looking at, because she is most likely going to have to decide whether to apply to a school of engineering for BME or arts & sciences for Microbiology. (She doesn’t need to look at every university’s BME vs Microbiology, just take one school as a case example to compare what courses she would take in each major. That would definitely give her a flavor for one major vs the other, and from there she could decide what appeals to her more.) Obviously, my case shows you can choose wrong and still end up where you want to be, but I did have to take a couple of summer classes in order to be caught up for my change of major and change of college (within the same university).

The other piece of advice I have is don’t rule out universities that don’t have a Microbiology major per se. She could still major in Molecular Biology or Biology and tailor her courses to include more in the microbiology area and maybe (hopefully!) do research in a microbiology research lab. Microbiology is a little specific and is not offered at every school as a major, though biology, molecular & cell biology, biochemistry often are. (Same thing goes for biomedical engineering. If the school doesn’t have that major, she could major in electrical engineering and add bio courses and maybe do BME research.)