BS in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology looking to get into engineering masters program

nanotechnology
Mon, 27 Mar 2017 19:55:23 +0000

I went from a BS in behavioral neuroscience to a masters in bioengineering (and then on to a PhD in computer science). Bioengineering is one of the engineering fields where it’s more feasible to move into the field for graduate school without an undergrad degree in engineering. For the others, it’s much more difficult, especially coming from a life sciences background. Make sure that you have the pre-requisites for the programs, though. For me, this meant adding differential equations and linear algebra to my required coursework.

The other question is: why do you want to go to graduate school in engineering? Remember that graduate school is a means to an end. Your uncertainty over what field of engineering suggests to me (perhaps erroneously) that you’re not certain where you’d like to go with it. If that’s the case, hold off on grad school.

As for masters vs PhD, that depends again on what you want to do. I knew that I wanted to go into academic research, which requires that I have a PhD. For some careers, the PhD won’t make a difference. You have to know what you want to do to know whether the PhD makes sense.