Bioengineering graduate work

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Many people on this board are saying that most or all of the “real engineering”–i.e., not technician–jobs in the emerging (fuzzily-defined) bioengineering field tend to require doctoral-level (Ph.D or maybe MD) degrees. This begs the question, what are good fields to study in undergrad in order to be prepared for graduate work in bioengineering?</p>

<p>Some majors that come to mind are, in no particular order,</p>

<li>biomedical/bioengineering</li>
<li>chemical engineering</li>
<li>“hard” biology (molecular, microbiology, cell biology; i.e., not evolutionary or organismic biology, not that these aren’t difficult and exciting fields; I mean that they aren’t “hard” in the engineering/physics/chemistry/math sense)</li>
<li>biochemistry/organic chemistry/chemistry</li>
<li>biophysics/physics with a biophysics/biology/biochemistry emphasis of some kind </li>
<li>mechanical engineering (biomechanics?)</li>
<li>electrical engineering (bioelectrical stuff?)</li>
</ol>

<p>Note that the above list is entirely based on the armchair musings of a high school student and so is probably not too accurate. Hopefully, someone with academic/industry experience will stumble onto this thread.</p>

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<p>It totally depends on what kind of work you'd like to do... but I'd say definitely any engineering over "hard" biology or advanced chemistry. The engineering/math/problem solving background can be extended to most types of research you'd do in BME, and it's not hard to pick up the bio. The research it seems these areas lead to are still heavily bio-based, less engineering. </p>

<p>But I think you answered your own question... each BME research area is based in one of the 'core' engineering disciplines. There are a couple areas that seem to apply to most BME problems though - signals, imaging, and materials science. But ME applies to many BME areas too, tissue engineering, cellular mechanics, anything related to fluid flow, etc. My (limited) experience with ChE is that it's much more process/manufacturing based, so it doesn't seem to be quite as natural of a step from BS to graduate work. </p>

<p>(I guess that's my long way of saying BME, ME, or EE are your best bets, and choose what area of research interests you the most, and the background necessary.)</p>