Hi, I’m a first time poster so if this is in the wrong forum, I’m sorry! ^^;
I know this has been talked about before, but I still wanted to try and get some more advice on the topic. Basically, I’m doing college apps right now and I wanted to know whether it’d be smarter to select ChemE for my undergrad (as it’s more traditional) and then choose BME for my masters or if I should just do BME the whole way through? Thanks!!
I have heard on these boards that there is no point to doing BME in undergrad. You get a little bit of everything and depth in nothing.
If you are absolutely committed to going to grad school, though, and don’t expect to get a job before that, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
ME is a more traditional precursor to a masters in BME. Unless you absolutely LOVE chemistry and that’s why you chose it, I’d go with ME.
From what I understand from my nephew there are undergraduates at Johns Hopkins with BME degrees getting hired with a Bachelors to a very handsome salary. But that being said JHU is pretty much on the top of the scale with regards to BME and these undergrads have been published in scholarly journals before they graduate.
The top BME programs now specialize in tracks, ME, EE, CS, or Mat’l Science. If you look at those, you can get some idea on how to weave an interest in BME into your undergraduate degree, and also see what a specific school offers. I think these programs are also producing graduates that people would want at the B.S. level. BME is a fairly new and evolving field, so I think some of the nay-saying is based on industry trends that are years or even decades old.
ChemE programs often specialize in process engineering, aka chemical plants or biological processes, although every school has somewhat different flavor. ChemE programs require a lot of chemistry classes and have some of the best match for pre-med requirements such as organic and biochemistry. However, the actual junior and senior year project type classes may or may not be of interest to you or applicable to your BME graduate studies. Similarly biochemical engineering, bioengineering, biomolecular engineering have very little to do with the human body, but may be very applicable to say pharmaceuticals.
Payscale salaries for BMEs are very competitive with other engineering disciplines at the BS level. And who knows if petroleum engineers will really be able to command high salaries now that oil is cheap again. Similarly aerospace pays well but is not thriving or expanding.
For now, your interest in BME and/or pre-med can help you select a good match college. Some schools have limited enrollment into engineering programs as well, and BME can be even more competitive at say UCSD.
ChemE and BME are pretty different disciplines. Seems unlikely to me that someone interested in BME for graduate school would want to study ChemE in undergrad.
BME is certainly not a “pointless” undergrad degree, but if you want to do technical engineering work, a bachelor’s in BME won’t qualify you for much. BMEs are a good fit for consulting jobs though.
Hi, thanks to everyone for responding. I’m not too well versed in the differences between all of the engineering disciplines to be honest but I had found an interest in both ChemE and BME which is why I figured that I could possibly mesh them together in the future. Could you tell me the major differences between the two as well as what fields they’d go into after you get your degree? Also, if I do end up choosing ChemE for my undergrad, does that mean that I’ll have to take catch-up courses in the future since it isn’t as common a precursor as ME or EE for BME for example?
Shoot okay, I’m not too sure on how to edit posts on here just yet but I just realized that PickOne1 made some insightful points about the differences. Specifically, I’d like to know about the junior and senior courses of ChemE and what exactly you do learn in BME if there’s very little emphasis on the human body.
Looks like there’s a little confusion here.
BME is typically used to refer to biomedical engineering. It does have quite a bit of emphasis on the human body.
Biomolecular engineering is not usually called BME. It’s essentially ChemE with a focus on the production or use of biology in chemical processes.
Your junior/senior year in ChemE is usually just about process engineering-- understanding chemical processing equipment and using that knowledge to design chemical processing plants. It’s nearly entirely unrelated to BME.
My husband and I got our BS degrees in BME back when it was still fairly new and not many schools offered it as a major. Most of our work has been in the medical device industry in varying roles - primarily in R&D and Quality Assurance. My husband is now in a hiring role and recently hired a new graduate. When I heard the starting pay, I thought it was really good!
I should also add that with the exception of our 1st 2 years out of school (job market was weak), we haven’t had any issues finding employment. Medical device companies often look for BME majors.
“ChemE programs require a lot of chemistry classes…”
Well, this is going to greatly depend upon the school one attends.
At Lake Jr.'s university, the only upper level chemistry requirements for ChE majors are a year each of Organic Chemistry and Physical Chemistry. A course in fundamental Analytical Chemistry is a basic requirement at the school. He enrolled in Materials Chemistry as an elective.