<p>This is focused towards all working biomedical engineers, but obviously I would love advice and responses from college students in the field. </p>
<p>I’m a college freshman, and I thought BME was for me, but after doing some deep thinking, I wanted to make sure I chose the right path, and I had some questions for you all to help me decide.</p>
<p>The way that we are told to choose our career is to follow our passions. However, when I look at many college websites that ask me questions like “If you answered yes to these questions, BME might be for you!” these questions don’t actually pique my passion. For example, one university’s website that I looked at asked me if “using engineering principles combined with applications of biology, math, and medicine to create solutions” was something I was interested in doing. TOO COMPLEX, and DIDN’t make me want to jump into the field face-first. We can even take this from another standpoint: someone could say that their passion is to research the human genome, or to create prosthetic leg replacements for people, etc. This is not a passion - this is a job description. Passions are something you are born with - I did not burst out of my mother’s womb knowing full well that I would grow up to research the human genome! I believe they are what makes you come alive, what makes you love to do what you want to do. For some people, this includes teaching, or nature hiking, etc. For engineers, what makes us come alive could be the fact that we build and create stuff!! (
FOR GOODNESS SAKE WE’RE CREATING STUFF!! :D) This is at least why I knew I wanted to be an engineer, because I love to create, and build stuff.</p>
<p>So my questions for all the BME people out there who are dedicated to their jobs, passionate about what they do, are as follows:</p>
<p>What is it that makes you come alive?
Why do you love BME?
What is it about BME that makes you come alive?
What do you do, why do you do it?
What is your drive, your motivation? (this is different from passion, in that motivation helps us get through the low times in our career. Passion is something that makes you come alive.)
- Note - your passion doesn’t have to be specifically BME. I think it’s weird if what makes you YOU is your job! XD
In spite of the stress, and the difficulty that comes with BME, what makes you keep going? (besides money XD)</p>
<p>Feedback of all kinds is great for this. If you think my assumptions about passion, or engineering, are wrong, please tell me! I am simply a college freshman whose concerned about my life, but as such I may make wrong decisions or have wrong beliefs. Tell me about what you do on your job, how much stress is in it, how you deal with it. Tell me why you would love to do what you do right now for a living every day of the rest of your life.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for your replies, and I hope this makes other people besides those in BME ponder these questions themselves, because it seems like people find jobs just because they can, or for money, or for trivial reasons, but not many people actually follow their dream job, where they do stuff that makes them come alive.</p>