<p>i was curious, where exactly where a BME engineer find employment, as a practicing engineer?</p>
<p>hospitals? industry? are there a lot of opportunities for BME majors in big cities? (i live in NYC)</p>
<p>You can become a specialized BME in something like biomaterials, etc. or a clinical engineer, or anything else you want to do.</p>
<p>BME is a growing field and a lot of research postitions are available.</p>
<p>BME's tend to find jobs in the biomedical industry - i.e. making biomedical devices. Some companies that imediately come to mind are Johnson & Johnson, Guidant, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, Baxter, Stryker. There are many others.</p>
<p>I'm interested in BME, too. But, I have concerns about it. It seems that BME is:
1.) too specialized. A BME can only get jobs in one industry. What if there is no jobs when one graduates? Or, what if one wants a change in work? The degree isn't like EE or ME, which are broad and versatile fields. I don't want to be just a lab rat.
2.) not a terminal degree. I usually hear BME to only be a jumping pad for other advance degrees, such as an MD, a PhD, etc. It reminds me of degrees in the natural sciences, where, if one expects to get by with only a bachelors, their services are limited to certain jobs, such as lab technician, etc. Other engineering degrees holders only need to worry about getting a Masters, at most.
3.) Accreditation. I've heard that a lot of programs that have tracks in BME are not accredited. That's kind of weird.<br>
4.) Income potential. I don't know if BME has as much income potential as other degrees.</p>
<p>Answers to your concerns:</p>
<p>1) Absolutely right, which is why I'm not convinced that a BME degree is a good degree to have as a foundation bachelor's degree, compared to some of the other engineering choices available.</p>
<p>2) Also true. In fact, the entire health care and biology field in general seems to suffer from 'degree envy', in that the need for advanced degrees seems to be quite strong. For example, to be perfectly frank, you really can't do much of anything with just a bachelor's degree in biology beyond just being a lab rat. To really advance, you basically need a PhD or an MBA. The same holds true for BME.</p>
<p>3) This, I don't think is a serious concern. Accreditation tends to be overrated. Accreditation seems to be really important only for specific fields like perhaps civil and construction engineering. For example, Berkeley is one of the top engineering schools in the country. Yet Berkeley materials science is unaccredited. Engineering physics (EP) is unaccredited. And of course Berkeley bioE is unaccredited. Heck, MIt's bioE is also unaccredited. </p>
<p>The truth is, most employers don't care about accreditation. They care about whether you went to a good program, not really about whether the program is accredited. It would be quite rare for an employer to say to a Berkeley materials science graduate that he really did well in the interview, and he has the skills that we need, but his degree isn't accredited, so we're not going to hire him and instead we're going to hire somebody who has an accredited MatSci degree from a no-name school.</p>
<p>4) Probably the biggest problem of all of BME. The truth is, the salaries that BME's get is remarkably low relative to other engineering fields.</p>
<p><a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Bioengr.stm%5B/url%5D">http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Bioengr.stm</a>
<a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm%5B/url%5D">http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm</a>
<a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/ChemEngr.stm%5B/url%5D">http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/ChemEngr.stm</a>
<a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MechEngr.stm%5B/url%5D">http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MechEngr.stm</a></p>
<p>Depends where you go to school, simple as that. In some schools you do specialize, in others you don't. Me personally, I'm specializing in biomaterials, for now at least. With my BME degree I will be able to get a job in almost any industry, because I will also have a materials minor fulfilled by my BME requirements.
With a B.S. in BME most people who do want to get a job, get one. At the same time the majority of people choose something other then BME to do in life. About 60% go to grad school of some sort, be it for an MD, JD, MBA, etc. The vast majority of people 40% of the total major (part of the 60%) apply to med school, and many if not most get in. So yes you can kind of consider it a jump off point for higher degrees. This does not mean you can't work with a B.S., as a mattter of fact many people do, and eventually if they are good the company you work for sends you out to get a degree they would like you to have, masters, or phd, or mba.
As far as income potential, sakky posted bioengineering, a different thing, with way different salaries. Check this link out from cnn: <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/Careers/01/26/cb.top.jobs.pay/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/Careers/01/26/cb.top.jobs.pay/index.html</a>
You will notice that on this list of top jobs, biomedical engineering is number 3 with an avg. salary of $70,520 and growing. But like you see, it says employers often require a grad degree for entry level jobs, because in some schools people are just not prepared to be in one specialized area. From some schools people are, but I would say not most programs in the U.S.
As far as the field being new, it isn't. It's been around since the 70s, sure not as long as meche, and cheme, but long enough not to be considered "new" engineering.</p>
<p>Bioengineering is not a different thing at Berkeley. Examine the BioE curriculu at Berkeley, and you will see that it is a biomedicalE curricula. </p>
<p>Some schools like to give certain fields weird or fancy names. For example, MIT has its "Brain and Cognitive Sciences" department, but really, that's the Psychology department.</p>
<p>The point I was making here is that BioE/BME doesn't really make a particularly high salary for people with just bachelor's degrees, relative to other engineering degrees. Obviously, just like in any other field, you can go for advanced degrees to get better job prospects.</p>
<p>From what I've seen your job prospects in Biomedical Engineering are greatly improved with a Master's degree.</p>
<p>Biomedical engineering encompasses many fields of engineering, so you should get a degree that relates to a specific area of BME. For example, if you want to develop biomaterials, get a degree in chemical or materials engineering.</p>