Interesting to see if the Engineering Sciences major will make people interested in engineering to come to Emory rather just going to an engineering school like GA Tech or doing the 3/2 program with Tech. I’m guessing it will increase the number of these Engineering Sciences majors thorough the Physics department pretty significantly (probably to a significant enough extent that there may not enough room in the upper level classes or enough advising since the Emory Physics department has always been relatively small). The knowledge gained from a Physics degree is often seen by many as too academic and unemployable outside of academia (and jobs in academia are hard to find since the tenure system ensures a VERY slow turnaround for jobs), while engineering majors generally have much better job prospects (since most probably go into industry, where things move much more quickly and thus jobs open up more often) . Though the issue is that there aren’t true upper level engineering course offered through the major so I wonder how the first wave of graduates from this degree will compare to engineering majors from a solid engineering school in terms of having employable skills. And since Georgia already has a solid engineering school, in-state people may just choose the cheaper option unless maybe the track record for placement in high-paying engineering jobs from these Engineering Sciences majors is stellar.
Keep in mind that having an Engineering major at the undergrad level is not necessary for graduate studies in engineering if that’s what people decide to do later on. I have a friend who was a B.S. Physics major at Emory and did research in biophysics research as an undergrad, and is now doing PhD in Bioengineering.
The Life Sciences Physics or Biophysics degrees seem like a good fit for either pre-meds who have an interested in going into rad onc (the field in medicine where a physics knowledge base is most necessary for clinical practice), people who want to become medical physicists, or maybe even people who want to do bioengineering or BME at the graduate level.