<p>Is it possible to receive a vigorous training in bioengineering at Princeton?</p>
<p>Unlike MIT/Harvard, Princeton does not offer a major in bio-engineering right?</p>
<p>Please advise.</p>
<p>LOL vigorous? Interesting diction.</p>
<p>You can do ChemE and specialize in bioengineering (there are different ChemE tracks), and also get a certificate in engineering biology:</p>
<p>[Princeton</a> University – Engineering Biology – Home](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/engbio/]Princeton”>Program in Engineering Biology)</p>
<p>If you do well at Princeton, you’ll get a good job/go to grad school/do whatever you want in life. The training is quite rigorous (not sure about vigorous lol), and you’ll be learning from some of the best.</p>
<p>Hey thanks for the reply. I am talking about intellectual vigor here. =) LOL</p>
<p>damn vigorous training, now that is something :)</p>
<p>I hope you mean “rigor.”</p>
<p>here you go:</p>
<p>[Princeton</a> University – Chemical Engineering – Department Changes Name to “Chemical and Biological Engineering”](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/che/news/stories/2009/12-08-b/]Princeton”>http://www.princeton.edu/che/news/stories/2009/12-08-b/)</p>
<p>The Princeton Chemical Engineering Department has been ranked in the top ten in the Country for Decades.</p>
<p>warning, however: it is typically considered the toughest department at Princeton.</p>
<p>^What? ChemE tougher than Math? Tougher than Physics? No way.</p>
<p>randombetch, ask the current Princeton students or any of the alumni what the top 3 toughest majors at Princeton are.</p>
<p>I talk to Princeton students about the difficulty of courses all the time (I am a current Princeton student). I’m pretty sure the general consensus is:</p>
<p>1) Math
2) Physics
3) EE</p>
<p>I’ll ask around though.</p>
<p>random, when we talk about toughest majors it is not just the difficulty of the courses, it also includes the amount of work and requirements for graduation. Ask around again. You will see that ChE’s have much higher work loads and less of an opportunity to take the “easy” elective classes that can occur in the Math, Physics and EE majors.</p>
<p>Lol? All BSE students have the same course load requirements (which is only 5 courses more than for AB students), and they have far fewer distribution requirements. Which classes are the “easy” electives again? I would argue for a math major, ChemE courses are easy electives (probably easier than any music or visual arts class for the non-artistic math major). I know plenty of ChemE’s - they never really complain about work load nor difficulty of courses. They primary complaint is that the courses just aren’t that interesting.</p>
<p>Furthermore, AB students almost always take way more than the required 31 courses to graduate. I’ll have taken 39, which is 3 more than required for a BSE student to graduate.</p>
<p>ChemE requirements are:
-Take 36 classes
-9 of them are ChemE core classes (5 are upper level)
-Mat 303
-Gen Chem + 1 semester of Orgo
-Mol 214</p>
<p>EE requirements are:
-Take 36 classes
-10 of them are EE (at least 5 upper level)
-One upper level class from another engineering department
-One upper level math
-At least one upper level class from CEE, CHM, CHE, COS, EEB, ELE, MAE, MAT, MOL, MSE, ORF, or PHY (up to 3 if only 5 upper level EE classes are taken)</p>
<p>Exactly how do the ChemE’s have less of an opportunity to take “easy” elective classes than EE’s?</p>
<p>random, why don’t you post the Math and Physics major requirements also, since they are included in the topic of our conversation.</p>
<p>then come back and ask the same questions.</p>
<p>random, by the way, aren’t you forgetting a couple of other requirements for the ChE. major than what you have posted?</p>
<p>I will give you some time to adjust your post to make it correct</p>
<p>No response to my last question? Haha, alrighty then.</p>
<p>All AB requirements are pretty simple: take 8 upper division courses in that subject along with 11 distribution requirements. What’s your point, that there are fewer required departmentals? Taking an extra 3 engineering courses is not that big of a deal. Regardless, the whole point of listing the requirements was to show you how similar EE’s and ChemE’s requirements are.</p>
<p>If you’re talking about the “advanced” requirements - I was a bit confused about those since they seem to overlap with the aforementioned requirements, so I didn’t include them. Not much of a difference though: +1 upper level ChemE course, +1 upper level Chem course. That actually makes the two departments closer terms of sheer requirements - no idea where you got this bogus idea that ChemE is somehow more rigorous than the other engineering departments. I still think that EE courses are harder too.</p>
<p>
I see why you think ChemE’s the hardest department - you were a ChemE! I don’t know about back in your day, but if there ever was a stereotype that ChemE is the toughest department, it’s no longer present. At least, not from what I’ve gathered from talking to hundreds of students here about courses, including multiple current ChemE’s.</p>
<p>PS: Engineering department gives out more A’s than math/physics too. 40% compared to 35%.</p>
<p>Thank you guys for the enthusiastic responses. But more pertinently, can anyone elaborate on the vigor or rigor of the Bio-engineering course at Princeton in comparison with that at other top engineering universities?</p>
<p>Oh btw, Princeton’s Chemical Engineering Department was renamed the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department. But it seems that Chem&BioE dept website hasn’t updated the change in name yet…</p>
<p>random, since you are a premed student that is having problems with his grades and that has been complaining on just about everything, lets get back on track about what we were originally discussing. You claimed that the physics and math departments were tougher than the ChE department:</p>
<p>“What? ChemE tougher than Math? Tougher than Physics? No way.”</p>
<p>You also failed to post the requirements for the Math and Physics departments and when you posted the ChE. department’s requirements you left out a significant amount of required classes.</p>
<p>When kindly asked to put up the correct requirements, you again refused.</p>
<p>So why don’t you be a good premed boy and post the correct requirements for the ChE, Physics and Math departments so that we can have an intelligent conversation on this matter?</p>
<p>I don’t get the point of the arguing, you can’t tell how hard a major is by listing the requirements, you can only tell if you’ve taking the departmentals and done the independent work for all of the majors you are trying to discuss. It’s also a completely personal thing – depending on what your strengths are you might find one major super easy while everyone else finds it really hard. </p>
<p>I would agree with randombetch that math/physics/ele are probably harder on average than chem-e, and harder to maintain a higher gpa in. I knew several chem-es and other than thermo, which you take freshman year, they didn’t complain too much. PHY205 is called deathmech for a reason, and the 215/217 math sequence is definitely rough. ELEs have carlab which takes up a ton of time. If you are talking about time as a measure of difficulty, the architecture kids definitely have it the worst.</p>