<p>I am a female interested in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering or Biomedical Engineering at Brown.</p>
<p>I know that a lot of pre-meds take the biomedical engineering route, so does that mean the major is hyper competitive and cut throat? Considering my financial circumstances, I can’t manage to fail courses, and I have to be able to graduate in 4 years.</p>
<p>And why do most engineering students pursue masters? Because I highly doubt my family can support me for masters as well, i wouldn’t even dream of brown if my parents hadn’t been saving up money for my education all their lives. </p>
<p>So my goal is to go to brown engineering, get my bachelors, and go straight off to work. And my question is, is this unlikely to happen? Would I need a masters degree to get a decent job?</p>
<p>Most engineers nationwide don't go on to grad school, it just so happens that many students out of our program decide to go that route. Very few pre-meds go biomedical engineering, in my experience, maybe 10% or so of all BMEs consider that.</p>
<p>You'll be more than able to, like all Brown students, to finish in 4 years if that's something that's critical for you.</p>
<p>FWIW, I came in this thread ready to tell you that Brown does far better in terms of percentages of women in engineering than other schools nationwide. Last I knew, nationwide 17% of students who were studying to be engineers were female. At Brown, that number has hovered around 37% the last two years (40% for all physical sciences, over 50% if you include life sciences and look at the sciences in general).</p>
<p>Your anxiety is understandable, but in this case, quite misplaced.</p>
<p>Graduate school for science concentrators rarely costs money, BTW. It's often subsidized by grants and TAing to offset the costs. It's professional schools that typically have huge costs associated with them, not graduate programs in the sciences.</p>
<p>I suppose it could be different in engineering, but in the science fields with which I am familiar, the free tuition applies to PhD students, but not to masters students. The latter are expected to pay.</p>
<p>Some engineers enter the workforce right after college, and decide later whether to return to school for a masters. So it is hardly as if you must get a masters because you major in engineering.</p>
<p>afan-- good point. I was referring to PhD students. Being a chemistry major, where there almost does not exist programs that award M.A. or M.S. degrees (you're typically brought in as a PhD candidate but can stop along the way at those degrees), I tend to forget that little fact.</p>