Bioengineering for undecided but interested prospect

Any current WFU in this program (which is fairly new)? My son visited WFU and loves the campus but is undecided as to a major as of today. Do you declare sophomore,ore year? Are most core classes at Wake Downtown? Do you feel isolated from the main campus or is it fairly exciting being downtown? Is there any way to also take some of the business classes? Ay help from current students who sort of clicked with this field of study—my son is feeling that “how am I supposed to know when I don’t yet know” feeling about majors whe you are only 17.

I believe majors aren’t declared until end of sophomore year and most classes are taken on main campus. My D in incoming ‘23 and does not know her major yet and that is perfectly OK, you are not supposed to know at 17, 18 or even 19. I would encourage your son to reach out to his admissions officer with any questions and if they can’t answer them they can point you to the correct person/people to get you answers.

Thank you. Are there any current BioMed Engineering students here? Curious if the Wake Downtown experience is going smoothly–whether students interact with tenured faculty or teaching Assistants. The Engineering school is new but Wake seems to do most things very well.

No knowledge of Biomed program but maybe this will help add perspective about selecting majors in general. S is at Wake, class of '21 (loves it BTW). At freshmen orientation, we sat in on some parent programming for half a day. One session was led by the head of Career Services (brilliant guy who used to have similar role at Stanford Grad School of Biz). His presentation was all about exploring interests via the divisional requirements, being open to new things and how career services can help every student, not just the business majors. He then essentially asked us to raise our hands if “your kid knows what he wants to do, will likely pick and stick with that major, will seek a career based on that major, etc.” Maybe 25% to 33% raised their hands and he assured the whole group that this was not just the minority but way over represented vs. reality. Then he shared the stats of kids who change majors, careers, etc. It’s very common. He would say it’s fairly unusual to not assess and reassess, making changes along the way.

Majors are declared in 2nd half of sophomore year. You can take the prereqs for the business school like anyone else (Calc, Econ, Accounting - lots of kids switch out of business after accounting). If you’re worried about career options, the OPCD (Office of Personal and Career Development) is a great resource. They offer classes (for credit), workshops, coaching, etc. They’re excellent at what they do. However, like anything else, your kid has to engage them to take advantage of the resources.

Correct, end of sophomore year. My child had class downtown. S found the commute a bit of a hassle. There is a shuttle you take from main campus that takes about 10 min. The downtown campus is very nice. All classes have been with profs, but labs (in this case Organic Chem) were led by a grad student. As an aside, S found Org Chem teachers to be excellent.

We toured the Wake Downtown facilities in connection with “The InterView.” Grad student was a super ambassador and the building complex is co-located with parts of the Medical School. Most larger schools are going to have bus service and some logistics. S is pretty set on ED.