<p>Hi guys im currently a high school senior and i was going through my options.
I have to choose between UCI and its biomedical Engineering:Pre-med and Cal Poly SLO’s Biomedical engineering program.
So I discovered today that Cal Poly SLO has a 4+1 Program. Which means that you would finish your Bachelors and Masters in 5 years!!!
has anyone of you guys heard about this program and if so do you know if its any good as in terms of job opportunities afterward.
Also would the MS in BME be the same as any other MS in BME that you would get from another graduate school.</p>
<p>About the 4+1 Blended Program, you will not take the senior project and instead do the masters thesis. So you will fulfill all of the bachelors and masters requirements, minus the senior project, and finish with some kind of masters degree. To get a feel of the 4+1, go to CP Engineering, Academics & Research. Check both your department info and graduate study, and somewhere youll find the graduate program faqs and list of required courses. The catalog has some info, too. Then call the department and ask. Might be difficult to finish the masters part of the 4+1 in one year. Good luck with your decision.</p>
<p>I’m currently in the BMED 4+1 program at Cal Poly, and I’ll be finishing the BS and MS in five years. I think the trick to easily finishing in five years is to start research early in your career at Cal Poly. All BMED professors have a group of research students consisting of freshman through graduate students. In my second year at Cal Poly as a BMED student, I was not genuinely enthralled by any of my classes, so I approached a few BMED professors whose classes I had never taken but whose [url=<a href=“http://bmegene.calpoly.edu/media/files/FacultyAreasofInterest.pdf]research[/url”>http://bmegene.calpoly.edu/media/files/FacultyAreasofInterest.pdf]research[/url</a>] sounded fascinating. I joined a professor’s research group, gently started some research, and gradually became very interested in what I was doing. I’m now in my fourth year, I officially became a 4+1 student earlier this year having already completed 75% of the work for my MS, and most other students in my professor’s research group are doing the same thing.</p>
<p>Some 4+1 students do MEDITEC projects for their MS. For a MEDITEC project, an MS student is paired with a biomedical company that supplies the student with a real-world problem to solve. The student signs a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) with the company, communicates with company employees, and may spend some weekends on the actual company campus. 4+1 MEDITEC students graduating this June have told me that they have multiple job offers and suspect that hiring managers were impressed with the industry experience they acquired from the MEDITEC projects.</p>
<p>The MS in BME from Cal Poly’s 4+1 program is no less official than an MS in BME from other graduate schools. I think the main advantage of getting an MS at Cal Poly is that BMED professors have incredible connections to many biomedical companies and that BMED professors develop very close relationships with students. My advisor regularly communicates with directors of research at a few big-name biomedical companies that donate money to Cal Poly, and my advisor has introduced me to a few of those directors in person. I know that students in other BMED professors’ research groups experience the same thing. Many 4+1 students leverage these connections, yielding job offers before graduation.</p>
<p>So come to Cal Poly, worriedstudent9, and then spread the word about Cal Poly’s awesomeness!!</p>