M&t?

abhim89
Sat, 14 Apr 2007 02:45:28 +0000

Chyea, i was in a really similar situation late last year. i was def sure i wanted to do biomedical engineering in college, and i was trying to decide to which of the top BME schools i would apply early (My choices were penn, duke, MIT, JHU, umich and gatech). My main concern is that i was 90% sure i’m would not be a practicing engineering (work in an R&D lab) or enter academia as a researcher.

The thing with a school like georgia tech is that it’s absolutely great if you want to become a practicing engineer (if you want to work in a technical field such as designing/testing/manufacturing a medical device) or go to grad school; in that case, your GPA, research, and work experience are much more important than the school that you went to. Large scale engineering school like gatech, which churn out hundreds of “practicing” engineers every year, will probably provide the maximum number of technical job opportunities because companies recruit wherever there is a large talent pool. Gatech also has great BME research facilities. With the prez scholarship, its probably wiser to go to gatech if you are interested in pursuing a graduate degree or getting a technical job.

While all this seems great at first glance, there one caveat that i found when i was looking into BME job opportunities: there aren’t that many BME jobs to begin with. Recent discoveries and new proof-of-concept technologies make it seem like it is a burgeoning field; however, I think the media has done a great job inflating the rate at which BME is developing. As a result, it is almost required to get a masters or even PhD before you try getting a job (a BME bachelor’s degree alone will probably only guarantee you a position as a glorified lab technician) just because the competition for jobs is so great. most of the cutting edge work is being done in university research labs rather than corporate R&D labs. My good friend, who is a BME at gatech right now, told me that based on the career fairs and job postings he’s seen, there aren’t many BME jobs available. While most electrical engineers or MechEs with moderately high GPAs are swept up by large engineering firms, even graduating from a prestigious BME program at a school like georgia tech doesn’t guarantee a BME job. and those BME salaries are usually about 5-10k lower. my cousin has a Masters in BME and a bach in EE, and she is essentially working at a electricity company; she was unable to find a technical BME job.

To me, the M&T program seemed much more appealing to me. my reasons: 1) the opportunity to study business and engineering. its hard to study two very different fields in great depth, but the program is designed to help you do that in four years. 2) the ability to major in a technical field, with labs, research, the works, but still able to find an awesome job in a nontechnical field 3) penn bioE is amazing. they built an awesome new building, they’ve invested millions into the program over the last few years, the medical school research facilities are very closeby, and it has a lot of hands on components like labs and the clinical preceptorship 4) wharton has an awesome health care systems deparment, which has done a lot of important research on the supply side of the healthcare sector (namely biotechs/big pharma/med devices) Looking through old career surveys, it appears that M&Ts who majored in biomed have a greater variety of awesome options, from biotech/pharma consulting to selling your soul to Goldman Sachs

bottom line: if your goal is a masters/Phd or a technical/research job, chose georgia tech. the education will be the same as the education at penn, but its free if you are just as passionate about business as you are about math/science, don’t pass up m&t; it’s an awesome opportunity that will give you a huge leg up in the business world.