<p>Congrats on getting into Hopkins and the BME program. It’s definitely possible to go from Hopkins BME into the top medical schools. From last year’s class, we have people at Hopkins, Harvard, Duke, etc. That said, if anyone decides to pursue the BME program only as an easy way to get into medical school, they’re going to be miserable. As one other poster put it, “Going through Hopkins BME just to get into medical school is like climbing Mount Everest to get a breath of fresh air”. You really need a passion for engineering to enjoy and do well in the BME program. However, if you really find the fusion of engineering and medicine fascinating, you’ll love the Hopkins BME program. The department has fantastic faculty who all teach undergrads. The people who teach each course are experts in the field they are teaching (and in the broad overview physiology courses, they bring in different lecturers each week to lecture on their area of expertise). The research being done in the department is amazing, and it’s very possible to get involved in research as a freshmen. The graduates from the program get into really good medical and graduate schools, or find jobs in all the top biotech companies (there’s probably a company or two a week that’s holding information sessions in the BME building). </p>
<p>The program itself is no doubt difficult. Any Hopkins BME student you talk to will tell you of long nights of programming, problem sets and studying. But people stick with the program because even though the work is though, it’s really interesting. A problem set might take you a few hours to solve, but when you figure it out, you’ve actually learned something new that is really cool (for example, writing simulations of action potential propagation across the heart or of very basic learning models). The difficulty of the program results in a very tight-knit BME class. I’ve been asked many times about how competitive people in BME are, and I firmly believe that if you try to be cut-throat in BME and refuse to work with your fellow students, your chances of passing are slim. As a friend of mine put, “we all pull each other through the 4 years of BME”. Whenever I would work on problem sets, I would work with group of 4-5 other people, but we would be in constant contact with other study groups (either in person in the computer lab or via AIM or GChat) to help each other figure out problems. Our professors encourage collaboration, as long as everyone submits their own solutions in the end. </p>
<p>Beyond BME coursework, I think most BME students are very friendly and very involved on campus. You’d be surprised how many student groups have leaders that are BME majors (for example, the Model UN Conference, completely unrelated to BME, has been run by a BME major for 3 of the past 5 years).</p>
<p>Ultimately, I think the BME program is a great (but quite tough) experience. Every BME student (and probably every engineering student) loves to complain about their workload, but in the end, I’d wager that the vast majority are glad they stuck with the program. If you’re not sure that BME is for you, you’ll have a good opportunity to find out freshmen year. The freshmen BME design course (not sure of the actual title as it keeps changing) gets you involved in different BME related design projects in small groups of freshman, and after a semester you’re allowed and encouraged (and very strongly recommended by me) to join a Design Team of juniors and seniors working on an actual design problem submitted by doctors and engineers. It’s a great experience, and even if you decide that BME isn’t for you, you’ll still have plenty of time to figure out what it is you really want to study.</p>
<p>P.S. Go Duke Blue Devils!</p>