<p>I would like to have some views on selecting between UC Berkeley (Engineering - Undeclared) and JHU BME (in Dean’s Innovation Group) for an international student. The student is biased towards research in bio-engineering area. Warm weather is preferred but cold weather is not a huge issue. It may be a ‘no-brainer’ for many but both institutions are so good that it is difficult to ‘pass’ one.</p>
<p>You will get a lot more attention at JHU. Berkeley is a big public university with all the downsides that go with that. However, I’d have to go with Berkeley, the opportunities are limitless there in engineering for such an advanced student.</p>
<p>IMO, BME is the most oversubscribed major. I would choose Berkeley for engineering. Berkeley recently built a new building for cross-disciplinary studies involving bioengineering.
[09.26.2007</a> - Stanley Hall dedication heralds new era of bioscience innovation](<a href=“http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/09/26_stanley.shtml]09.26.2007”>09.26.2007 - Stanley Hall dedication heralds new era of bioscience innovation)</p>
<p>
Typical rhetoric. Yeah, I’m sure you’ll get a lot more attention at JHU as a biomedical engineer when everyone and their brother is majoring in it and trying to get into med school. LOL!</p>
<p>Berkeley’s College of Engineering is smaller and has more resources. Students I’ve talked to haven’t been impacted by budget reductions. The college requires you to graduate in 4 years and provides the resources to achieve that with an undergraduate “college buddy” and alumni mentor.
[Freshman</a> Admission FAQ — UC Berkeley College of Engineering](<a href=“Prospective freshman FAQs - Berkeley Engineering”>Prospective freshman FAQs - Berkeley Engineering)</p>
<p>It’s not “rhetoric”. It is an honest assessment of the situation. What does graduating in 4 years have to do with that? Who said anything about not being able to graduate in 4 years?</p>
<p>At Berkeley, you can get involved with professors and get involved with research, but it takes a lot of effort and initiative. The advising at L&S is practically non-existent. It is better in Engineering, to be sure, but you’re still dealing with a huge public university that is facing funding problems.</p>
<p>It is rhetoric when we’re talking College of Engineering vs. L&S. Not graduating in 4 years is typically one of the generalized “downsides” for a large public university.</p>
<p>
I can’t imagine it being much different at Johns Hopkins.</p>
<p>^ I can (imagine it). Smaller schools with lower faculty/student ratios have simply allocated more faculty resource per student. I don’t know how this plays out in engineering though…</p>
<p>The BME experience at Hopkins is often imitated, but never replicated or duplicated at any other school.
If cost is an issue, then go with UC Berkeley, which I assume will be cheaper for you.
If it’s not, it’s hard to turn down an offer for JHU BME. I question anyone who tells you BME is oversubscribed. What exactly makes any of the OTHER engineering paths less subscribed? Aren’t schools like MIT, Caltech, Berkeley, Cornell, etc churning out Mech Es, EEs, Chem Es, etc by the hundreds if not thousands? And in either case, more and more engineers in those fields are coming from places like China and India. One of the few engineering areas that the US still has a noticeable numerical and qualitative advantage over all others is in Biomedical Engineering, and for that program, JHU is, and has been for all the years it has ever had such a program, the #1 program in the country.</p>
<p>I can talk more in depth about the program, but only if necessary. I am curious, however, as to how the BME program at UCB would surpass that of Hopkins and why.</p>
<p>AND UCBChemEGrad is DEAD WRONG about another assessment: EACH year, only ~100 out of the 1200-1300 students in each undergraduate year is ALLOWED to major in BME. The program is kept small and intimate for good reasons ;)</p>
<p>though I’m sure at a school like UCB, 1000 people would be considered intimate :p</p>
<p>also: at Hopkins, all undergraduates in BME are assigned special advisors that they meet with frequently and whom know them by name and face within the first two weeks. There are also small projects that are coordinated with faculty and professors (3-4 students to one faculty member) that are later presented to the rest of the BME department.</p>
<p>and i dare anyone to come in here with that “JHU is cutthroat” or “JHU’s social life sucks.” Not only is that cliche, but it’s also riffraff, untrue, and outdated like a gramophone, and I’m more than willing to rip any one of these people a new one, because I’m tired of hearing it.</p>
<p>^ The OP was admitted as “Engineering - Undeclared” at Berkeley. This is important because it does allow for some academic exploration before having to declare major. </p>
<p>
I don’t think a BME program at UCB would surpass JHU’s BME program. For one, Berkeley does not have medical school resources and two, Berkeley does not offer a biomedical engineering degree.</p>
<p>However, there is more to bioengineering than just biomedical engineering. I believe Berkeley’s engineering program offerings are more extensive than what JHU provides.</p>
<p>
I say it’s oversubscribed due to the amount of interest (a lot), the number of programs (few) and the number of employment opportunities upon graduation (more limited) compared to a more traditional engineering route. A chemical engineer can get a job at a biomedical company…but a biomedical engineer can not find a job as easily in a process industry.</p>
<p>
Same situation with Berkeley and budget cuts. :)</p>
<p>I am not very familiar with the differences between bioengineering and biomedical engineering as I personally see the two as being very similar, but I do know that at Hopkins, bioengineering, and chemical and biomolecular engineering are amongst the options that a student who likes the general premise of bme, can explore, amongst other majors like biophysics, cellular and molecular biology, etc.</p>
<p>The amount of interest is indeed large for BME overall, but the amount of programs in it are small to begin with. Thus, there is not as much difference in supply and demand as you are suggesting. Also, amongst the BME schools, I’m pretty sure that a school like JHU would give its undergraduates top and first picks of BME related fields and positions before schools like Northwestern and Cornell which lag in comparison with their respective programs.</p>
<p>Students who enter BME programs tend to be focused on either BME or Pre-Med. It is unlikely that these students would be very interested in entering a MechE related or EE related field, and if they were, they could easily switch majors before subjecting themselves to countless BME courses until graduation.</p>
<p>
So, there are about 400 total BME students in the program, correct?</p>
<p>This compares quite reasonably to Berkeley’s total UG students in various engineering disciplines:
Chemical: 369
Bioengineering: 427
Civil: 395
Industrial: 128
Materials: 92
Nuclear: 47
Mechanical: 544
EECS: 935</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that at JHU people have to apply into BME when they apply to JHU, so it is somehow restricted. I don’t think it’s something just anybody at JHU can major in. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>^ I understand that…just like Berkeley is with declaring an engineering major while applying. However, as Hope2getrice said, “Students who enter BME programs tend to be focused on either BME or Pre-Med”. Pre-med students are very intensive for resources and the need to “get ahead” compared to the average engineering student.</p>
<p>BME is supposed to be one of JHU’s biggest strengths. For graduate schools, JHU is ranked #1 in US News in BME under engineering. </p>
<p>And by UCBChemEGrad posting the sizes of Berkeley’s engineering students vs JHU’s BME they kind of just disproved their own argument. There should be quite a sizable number of premeds at Berkeley too, not just at JHU.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>considering the amount of resources JHU has compared to the relatively small student body (more LAC sized than UCB sized), this is false.</p>
<p>a BME undergraduate of any year from freshman to senior can walk into the office of a faculty member in BME and land a research position right then and there. In fact, approximately 90% of BMEs participate in faculty/graduate student led research and/or conduct research of their own prior to graduation. In comparison, the next top BME school (Duke) can only say the same for approximately 60% of their students.</p>
<p>students at JHU overall have an easy time getting research. In the past year, I myself have landed two different research jobs: one on analyzing the effects of certain diseases on lab mice through controlled analysis, and the other in Public Health where I’ve been working with the Baltimore City School District and the Bloomberg School on Health Awareness at various high schools, and the effects of the programs being implemented there. For one job I get paid, for the other I get credit. And I’m not even a BME major! And by all means, I am not considered “exemplary.” I have tons of friends doing various other things, working with drosophila on the homewood campus to mutate stem cells, doing work in the Shock Trauma center, etc.
The student body here is not cutthroat or intense like people will tell you. Are there always people in the library? Yes. But what college doesn’t always have students in the library? Most people are out laying on the beach, tanning, playing volleyball, etc, while chatting or reading, or just sleeping. </p>
<p>And I see nothing wrong with the “get ahead” mentality. If more people had this progressive mentality, maybe the United States wouldn’t be embarrassingly stuck behind several other countries when measuring for educational aptitude. And studying hard does not mean not being able to party hard. If you encountered the number of peed-upon elevators and hungover kids I have at JHU, you might begin to see this for yourself and realize JHU is study hard and party hard ;)</p>
<p>Thank you all. I really appreciate your feedback.
Sorry, I could not post this note earlier.</p>