<p>At this point, these are the two engineering majors that I'm debating between. After some research, I've come up with pros and cons for both majors, but neither has come out as a definitive winner for me.</p>
<p>BioE</p>
<p>PROS:
+ Rapidly growing field
+ Opportunities for medical research & development
+ Combines engineering and medicine (both of which are interest areas for me) without the need to attend med school
+ Rice has a particularly strong BioE program</p>
<p>CONS:
- Requires more chemistry and biology courses than EE
- Some careers require masters/doctoral degree</p>
<p>EE</p>
<p>PROS:
+ More lucrative
+ Greater job selection/diversity
+ Requires less core bio/chem courses than BioE
+ B.S. is typically sufficient</p>
<p>CONS:
- Less room for expansion
- Possibility of obsolescence of skills
- Possibility of job outsourcing </p>
<p>I don’t know that I would list these as cons specific to EE, for any engineering skillset can theoretically be outsourced or be rendered obsolete.</p>
<p>BME basically requires a MS or PhD for a decent job, or at least it did a few years ago. I suggest actually looking at the careers available in both fields for those with a BS. You might be a bit surprised to find that a lot of the careers available are not necessarily what most people think of when they think of EE and BME.</p>
<p>Also, I’m not sure what you define “expansion” as, but I would not consider EE a field that is not expanding considering that electronics are a part of almost everything today.</p>
<p>Extremely misleading statistics. Percent growth is a mostly irrelevant number by itself. You need to look at it in the context of total number of new jobs instead. </p>
<p>For example, let’s say there are two fields, A and B. A currently has 250,000 jobs. B currently has 50,000 jobs. A will experience a growth of 10% and B will experience a growth of 30%. Clearly B is growing at three times the rate of A so everyone should flock to B, job opportunities abound! Except A is adding 25,000 jobs and B is adding 15,000. A will add 67% more jobs than B.</p>
<p>Good points. I didn’t even think about the fact that EE is currently a much larger field than BioE, so comparing job percent growth could be misleading. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, it’s also likely that more students will major in EE over the next decade than BioE; despite the fact that EE may grow more in terms of job quantity, increased domestic competition could make it harder to find or maintain a job. Of course, it’s hard to extrapolate because BioE is a relatively new field and interest in it is continuously increasing. What do you think?</p>
<p>"Question: How can an undergraduate student best prepare for a career in biomedical engineering?
Answer: Earn a BS in the traditional engineering discipline of his/her interest, plus complete a Minor in Biomedical Engineering.
Since biomedical engineering is an application of traditional engineering to the life sciences, and not a distinct discipline of its own, it is important for a student with an interest in biomedical engineering to complete a degree in the traditional engineering discipline of his/her interest. Most biomedical engineers have backgrounds/degrees in (1) electrical or computer engineering, (2) mechanical engineering, (3) engineering physics, or (4) materials science engineering. While it is possible to obtain an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering at some institutions, a student receives a stronger engineering background by completing a traditional engineering degree (such as in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, etc.) that is enhanced with extra life science and biomedical engineering studies. SDSU offers this option with its Minor in Biomedical Engineering program. Those students who want to be the best prepared for a career in biomedical engineering, either as an engineer or scientist, should complete both the traditional engineering degree and the minor in biomedical engineering. "</p>
<p>The first thing I recommend that every engineer does is to see what kind of jobs are available with a BS degree. Browse Monster.com (and similar), check out what companies went to your school’s past career fairs, browse the websites of companies in each field that are hiring (big, small, and medium sized), etc. This will take a bit of time but I think you will get a better sense of what you can expect upon graduation, something that all the statistics and numbers in the world won’t tell you. </p>
<p>Be a bit cautious of the information that schools provide you, it tends to be a bit biased to show off the more “sexy” side of each major. Ultimately, college is a big business and they want your money. And they want to attract the best students so they can report amazing statistics to attract more top students and more money. This is not to say that your school is lying to you when it tells you that you might be the next Neil Armstrong, but they will try to stretch the truth a bit.</p>
<p>Every EE-bound freshman thinks that they will be designing Intel’s next set of CPUs. While it’s possible that some will, substantially more will end up in a heavy industrial setting working as a glorified maintenance man. Similarly, I bet every BME-bound freshman thinks that they will be curing some life threatening disease or making its symptoms a non-issue. While it’s a possibility, I’m sure many more will end up in QA positions or doing sales.</p>
<p>Ultimately you should go with what you’re interested in. If you do well in either major you will get a decent job making some pretty good money.</p>