<p>I am attending the City College of New York which is part of the CUNY network.</p>
<p>I am in the biomedical engineering major - I passed the test to get in - and I am suddenly really worried.</p>
<p>I love science, and I love math. I got 100 in my calculus classes and 80-90s in my science classes. I went to Brooklyn Technical HS if that means anything. I have no problem with the college I am going to, or anything like that.</p>
<p>THE MAJOR SUDDENLY SCARES ME THOUGH. They say that biomedical engineering is REALLY REALLY HARD. What courses will help? I have taken AP Biology, AP Chemistry, 4 years of Math with Calculus, Organic Chemistry, Genetics, Anatomy and Physiology and a bunch of other science courses.</p>
<p>A guy at CCNY told me that if I can do really well in my first two years I will be fine. BUT THAT IS NOT REASSURING >_<!</p>
<p>I don't know if I will be able to do it. And even if I do really well in it, what will it all mean afterwards? Will I be able to get a job? I know I will have to go to medical school, but I mean what kind of jobs can a biomedical engineer get? What if I fail? By the way, I am female. Will that get me any props?</p>
<p>Will I be fine? Am I worrying too much?</p>
<p>mods: i apologize for the caps and the faces, but my future scares me!</p>
<p>You’ll be fine. It’s the ones that don’t worry that concern me.</p>
<p>No major is really hard unless you’re not very bright. BME will definitely be hard but nowhere near the difficulty you are expecting.</p>
<p>Don’t worry especially because of your successful background. You’ll do fine. Just study and work hard.</p>
<p>You don’t need to go to Med school right after BME. You can go into many diff. fields of industry (tissue and cell engineering, biomaterials, biomechanics). You’ll learn all about it when you take BME 101. </p>
<p>Hope to see you in the fall.</p>
<p>at last! someone who attends CUNY City and is actually in the BME program…</p>
<p>“sushiserv” id like to know all abt BME @ City…im interested in applying for the fall 2010 semester but so far i havent come across any reviews that are exactly “positive”. I really would like to be in NYC as an undergrad but also id like to be at a decent school offering a decent program…</p>
<p>please, id appreciate a decent unbiased POV of the BME program, the school, the faculty ,the workload and any other useful info</p>
<p>…thanks much in advance</p>
<p>I’m not sushiserv however… </p>
<p>The BME department at City is actually a rather amazing one because there are so many opportunities for good students. They always have a lot of money/scholarships to give out and tons of funding for undergraduate/graduate research. The faculty is SOOOOO NICE!!! We have a BMES club (Have yet to join but next semester I will), BME Seminars that anyone can attend and BME faculty/student meeting (Which I attended) and the students were able to talk one on one with the faculty and address issues in the BME department (It’s relatively new so they’re always looking for advice). It was a fun time and I took BME 101 and it’s all about the department and what is BME. There was also a lab tour of the labs. Very interesting and diverse fields of research. </p>
<p>But overall, it’s decent. I’ve never went to a top school or private school, so perhaps I wouldn’t know anything better. I mean, it’s not state of the artwork with superhightech lab equipment and whatnot like Columbia I suppose but it gets the work done. </p>
<p>I’ve only taken the core classes so far (Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, etc…) and depending on the professors, the material can be hard or easy. Also, the amount of effort you put into it. Make sure you join BMES or some other organization that can tell you which professors you should take because some of them you should definitely avoid if you want good grades. </p>
<p>Also, for the core classes, I felt slightly cheated out of an education because I’ve noticed we learn the same things at Ivys or top universities but at a slightly different rate, a slower rate or some extra material is just removed. If you really want to learn, you should read books and materials outside of school. </p>
<p>And oh, just for kicks, the administration at City College sucks. I wish I could just change the whole system. It’s not even the professors or the school or the subjects. It’s the crappy rules/administration/bosses that really need some sort of reformation. </p>
<p>I think that covers it. Let me know if you have any more questions.</p>
<p>Thanks much KidNovelist…</p>
<p>And, yes, I think I have a few more questions based on your reply.</p>
<p>1.) Do you find the “…slightly different rate, a slower rate or some extra material is just removed…” frustrating?</p>
<p>2.) Is the coursework particularly challenging?</p>
<p>3.)“crappy rules/administration/bosses”… such as?</p>
<p>I’m a techie too, going into electrical engineering in a suny, really all the majors will look scary, especially when I look at the sample schedule of nothing but 4 credit major only classes for 3 years after this upcoming one I have for mine.
From the sounds of it, you were in bio med or gateway(you didn’t say which kind of anatomy :P), anyway, you were in tech and did fine by the sound of your grades, so don’t stress out and don’t slack off and you will be fine.</p>
<p>admiralwhiskey, </p>
<p>1) Honestly I didn’t know about it until someone who’s graduated from Ivys told me and well, when some of the classes were particularly easy ie. Biology. The exams were all multiple choice (But then again, she said it was because it was the first time the lecture hall had too many people) and the questions were like almost verbatim from the textbook and she didn’t even test some of the harder material ie. details on Citric Acid Cycle or DNA replication. For physics, some bits were not tested like Parallel axis theorem and stuff (Then again, our class average was in the 20s because he made the questions particularly difficult). Our Calculus courses some of the material is added onto the later courses (so we do still learn it but later on :/) </p>
<p>2) I hate having to say this but depending on your professor, the coursework can vary vastly. For physics, a good professor the class average would be in the 40s-50s. My physics professor, the class average was in the 20s. Makes me think why our exams are harder than the other classes. Again, calculus II one professor gives review sheets for the exams and the other doesn’t. One professor knows how to teach and the other does. I think the Calculus and Physics courses are the most challenging but I think it depends on you. What are your best and worst subjects? </p>
<p>3) It’s just simple stupid truths about how the administration is run at the school. Ie. for the summer. I wasn’t sure if I passed a class or not, so I want to take it over the summer if I failed that class. Unfortunately, you have to sign up for summer classes before you get your grades back (which is very stupid indeed). So I had to sign up for the summer class and then two weeks later, I received by grade and I passed (wow!). And according to their rules it was too late for a refund. So, I talk to Bursar that told me to talk to registration that told me to go to the department and get a letter saying a passed that class (they could just check their computers o.O). It’s just insane. Also, some people have transfer credits that didn’t get evaluated until like three - four months later. It’s just a completely messy system.</p>
<p>wow…Thanks.</p>
<p>Hmm well i guess it always boils down to the professors. so do you live at the towers or some other student housing?</p>
<p>my worst subject is Chemistry, its by far the moast challenging for me. Physics, Biology, math havent giving me much headache in the past, it’s always been “chemistry”</p>
<p>Thanks again for your help. im doing my best gathering as much info as possible as early as possible cuz i dont want to be rushing applications and what not…im aHUGE procrastinator so im starting with this college applications thing long in advance</p>
<p>My worst subject was Chemistry too but someone told me how to study for it and I’m doing a lot better in the subject. </p>
<p>Just make sure you don’t memorize, you learn the material, understand why so and so behaves in that way. And chemistry at CCNY isn’t too bad. If you read the textbook, take notes, go over the notes and I stress DO the problems at the end of the chapter (Even if your professor doesn’t require it) and you’ll do fine. Make sure you ask questions too. </p>
<p>Take advantage of tutoring!!</p>
<p>the bme in ccny is amazing, but harder than many other colleges.
I am a graduate students in bme cc, some of my friends transfer to cc or come to cc after graduated from ms, they complained about the hard courses but they all loved the people here.
I think bme in cc is really academic program for students who want to be a researcher or prof in future. But if you just want a technician job or bme managerment related job in future, I don’t suggest the cc.</p>
<p>but what about the fact that BME at City is not fully accredited?</p>
<p>Right now, we’re in the process of getting acredited by the board. We should have ABET accreditation by the end of the year (fall semester or possibly spring?). They come every 6 years to check out the school and our department is relatively new, so there were always changes to the department. </p>
<p>BME field is fine w/o ABET because it’s such a new field compared to other engineering and they know that.</p>
<p>I am a former CCNY BME Grad. Class of 2010. I am very happy to see some CCNY BME students. One thing I can assure you is that CCNY BME students tend to be the best on campus. Sample my graduating class stats:
- PhD students at Duke, John Hopkins
- Engineer at Merc
- Engineer at Merck who is now pursuing PhD at Columbia
- 2 Business Analysts with Goldman Sachs
- Two Engineers in Medtronic
- Clinical Engineer at a Hospital in Oregon
- Two Research Scientists at Covidien
- MD/PhD student at Albert Einstein
- Research Scientist at GE Healthcare
- PhD Student at ETH, Zurich</p>
<p>CCNY BME research is amazing. You could basically work in any BME lab if you wished to. However, the focus areas are limited to Cardiovascular and Neural/Imaging. The coursework really lacks coherence. Some of the courses are redundant. Some are way too specific. Don’t take courses because they might come across as easy. Think about what you want to do in the future and how the courses might come handy. PS - Payton is a piece of #<em>$</em></p>