<p>Hello, I’m a new CC member, but I’ve been casually ghosting this site since highschool to get college/career advice. I don’t quite know under which category this thread would be appropriate, and I don’t want to scour the site to look, so forgive the newbie for her errors lol. </p>
<p>I’m a junior majoring in Biomedical engineering at a mid sized university. Due to having reasonably good grades and high SAT scores in high school, my university offered me a full scholarship that covers tuition for my undergraduate degree. Since I still live at home with my parents and commute, I’m basically getting a free engineering degree, except for gas money, technology fees, etc. My university has given me the option to get a free M.S. in engineering management, and if I choose to do it, I can get both my B.S. and M.S. done in a total of 4 years. So, should I do it? Is it worth it? On one hand, it’s a FREE M.S. that I’d have to pay a lot for if I want to do it later even at the same institution, but on the other hand, I don’t know if it will hurt my initial job prospects or not since it’s usually a degree for seasoned professionals looking to move up the corporate ladder, and might overqualify me as an applicant that’s fresh out of college. </p>
<p>If it helps, my career goal is to ultimately be in upper management in a biotech company. Cliche, I know, but I’m willing to do the necessary suffering to achieve it. I’m not really looking to move up a corporate ladder since there are frustrations voiced by more experienced engineers I’ve talked to that I’d like to avoid. I’d rather go the entrepreneurship route if I can.</p>
<p>I don’t think this is really all that relevant, but a lot of OPs post their college stats, so I might as well.</p>
<p>GPA:3.59 (Consistent 3.8+s for past 3 semesters, so projected to be 3.6-3.7 by the time I graduate if lucky)
Graduation (B.S): December 2014
Age at Graduation (B.S):20
GRE:TBD
FE:TBD
Research: Confidential so I can’t say exactly what, but I’ll have 4-5 different entries on my resume under this category by the time I get my B.S.
Publications: 1 coauthour, 1 first author (in process), 1 coauthour (in process)
Patents: none as of yet, one possible in future
ECs: 200+ hours of volunteer service at a hospital, and other stuff of little relevance
Employment: workstudying at my school for the past 2 years doing CAD and STEM related stuff</p>