<p>I am currently a freshman EE major at UC Davis and I'm starting to have thoughts of switching majors...possibly to BiomedicalE.</p>
<p>Please give me the Pros and Cons of the two comparing difficulty, future working environment, future pay, benefits of masters/PHD, as well as social aspects. I seem to get the notion that EEs will end up stressed, extremely socially deprived ...and deprived of girls lol</p>
<p>I'm just not sure if EE is worth it. Any of you EE/BiomedE have any regrets/comments?</p>
<p>Other major recommendations would be nice too</p>
<p>I’m finishing my 3rd year in BE. All I can really say about your dilemma is that you’ll also be stressed in BME. Can’t imagine its much different in any engineering discipline. Switch if you’re genuinely more interested in biology than EE. The nice thing about those two is they can be very connected if you wish…pleny of medical devices needed.</p>
<p>EDIT: Oh, and everyone here is going to tell you undergrad BME is a waste of time. Can’t say if I agree or not since I haven’t graduated yet. Seems like it depends on if you want grad school or not.</p>
<p>It depends on the school. Some BME curriculum have a couple of bio courses, a year of chem, maybe a semester or organic, and then general calculus, physics, engineering courses, along with bioeng courses. Others have more bio, like micro, or physiology, or even genetics. Check out the curriculum at the schools you are looking at to see if they have what you like. I wouldn’t rule out a school, though, if it’s advertised curriculum is not to your liking. Ask the department if you could take additional courses in bio if you want, or maybe more engin courses than the curriculum requires, to give yourself a more well rounded education. It may add to your time in school, but it would definitely increase your marketability when it comes to searching for jobs. I’m sure a lot of employers say to interviewees, Gee, we were really looking for someone who had taken blah,blah,blah, and knew their way around blah,blah,blah.</p>
<p>I read somewhere that some EE majors go into biomedical engineering programs in gradschool and generally the highest paid EE majors work at hospitals or something…</p>
<p>then there are some biomed engineering majors who plan to go to medical school</p>
<p>So the way the options weigh out seems like:</p>
<p>A)EE => EE Grad Program or BME Grad Program
BME grad program would probably be extremely challenging with weaker foundation in bio and chem, but more lucrative later on.</p>
<p>B)BME=> BME Grad Program or Medschool</p>
<p>I know BME would be stressful too but possibly less than EE? Then again with BME there probably won’t come a time when all my classes are femaleless or atleast it wouldnt happen until much later on. Not going to be the deciding factor…but its somewhat significant to take it into consideration lol. Also, what about job growth? I heard that BME jobs are growing much faster than EE jobs.</p>
<p>I may be wrong about these “things i read”…but i think they are somewhat accurate</p>
<p>I think the EE’s complaining about those things are making a lot of excuses for themselves. There are other ways to meet people or women (lol that is not a union of disjoint sets!) than in classes.</p>
<p>I think you should stick with EE. EE is bad to the bone. But if you aren’t enjoying yourself in a EE program, then maybe you should switch. Just don’t switch because you hear a bunch of people complaining about the major or because you hear that EE’s aren’t very well paid (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, EE’s make more than BME’s (or BE’s or whatever) starting out.)</p>
<p>Ya good point but don’t engineering majors end up with little to no time beyond classes/studying/labs. If not, would you say that BME majors have slightly more free time than EE majors?</p>
<p>Also…does anyone know how long the average EE/BME major takes to graduate? Or statistics of people dropping/switching out of the EE/BME?</p>
<p>If you’re worried about free time pick a liberal arts major. Just don’t complain when nobody wants to hire you when you graduate. Engineers have free time; how much free time depends on how smart and motivated you are.</p>
<p>Montegut: Sorry, I use them interchangeably. I’m doing bioengineering (our grad program is BME so that’s why I don’t really differentiate).</p>
<p>To the OP, my advice is still to go with what you enjoy more. From my experience, everything else falls into place. Again, that’s probably against most of the other advice you’ll hear around here. Disclaimer: I have no “real world” experience beyond graduation.</p>