<p>Hey CC, im currently a freshman going on my second semester. I know I want to become an engineer and I would love to work in the medical field. My interests in the medical field dont involve pharmaceuticals, more like designing MRI and stuff.
So I have been browsing CC for a while on this subject and the general agreement is to recieve your MS in BME in order to get the top jobs. But i have heard two different paths. Both result in a BME MS, but the difference is a BS is BME, or a BS is mechanical/electrical engineering. My personal pros and cons of each decision is below</p>
<p>Mechanical/Electrical BS
Pros
-better job prospects w/ only BS, higher average pay
cons </p>
<h2>-less interest</h2>
<p>BME BS
pros
-high interest, possible 1yr MS program after BS
cons
- lower job prospects w/ only BS</p>
<p>Getting a degree in a “traditional” engineering field would let you tailor your MS program to exactly what sort of thing you want to do within BME. If you’re interested in designing MRIs I imagine you’re interested in something like image analysis, signal detection, etc. These aren’t things you’ll get in bulk in a typical BME undergrad program, but things you can really delve into with a BS in EE. To me, a BME MS is to get you the background on biological systems you’d need in order to apply the subfield you like of your major’s undergrad.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply RacinReaver, I have been looking into my schools BME program (UW Madison) that allows me to specialize in Bioinstrumentation. Would this provide the more depth of study you refer to when suggesting EE</p>
<p>Your best bet would be to sit down with the course handbook and see what courses you’d be taking. Try seeing what sort of jobs people get out of the BME department or how many people do the specialization you’re interested in. Basically, the biggest worry about BME is that you’ll have a bunch of 200-level courses from a lot of different engineering departments, but very few junior/senior level ones. I know that’s why my undergrad school (Carnegie Mellon) only offered BME as a double major or a minor. That way you’d have a very solid understanding of a traditional field, and the BME classes could be dedicated on how to apply various majors to problems seen in biology.</p>
<p>You will find that many people who design MRIs have a physics or electrical engineering background and a graduate degree, possibly as a medical physicist.</p>
<p>I was going through this same problem about a year ago. I wanted to do BME because I love how the human body works and want to implement engineering knowledge to develop ways to protect the body and fix it. I found out after a lot of research and talking with profs and students that an ME/EE will be much better than a BME. In terms of jobs, a medical related company takes way more ME’s/EE’s than BMEs. Why do they do this? Well, they operate as teams in their Research and Development departments. So, that means that they would have 15 ME’s, 5 EE’s, and maybe 3 BME’s. Teams work much better than individuals. This is at least the case where I am cooping now. </p>
<p>BTW, from my school 45% MEs have internship or coop experience while only 20% of BMEs have that.</p>
<p>@phasor the problem you explained is exactly how i feel, thanks for your insight about internships and the industry. Im still torn between EE/ME</p>
<p>@Jnelsonmarka Thanks for the suggestion, Im taking Chem for Engineers (combines che 1 and 2 into one semester) next semester. Im really excited for it and if i figure out I have a knack for it. I will seriously consider CE.</p>