@jackief do you think this should give us pause on Case as an institution overall? It is on DD’s short list for this fall.
Overall, the school has been very positive for my D academically, socially, etc. And her senior project was much more positive than other reports here. I just wanted to share this one experience with job hunting, both the results and the less than transparent initial information from the coop office.
As a prospective student, we were told high numbers for coop placement, I think in the 80-90% range? The fact that her grades were above average and she had other (non-engr) work experience and interview experience made me naively think that she would be successful and not to pursue other options. Since the coop cycle is late- they don’t get access to the db until Mar? before a summer work period, when it became obvious that jobs were few it was too late to look elsewhere. At the end of this cycle the office sent out a letter that only 50% of coops were placed (this is skewed as most are CS placements)
She did a second attempt during another coop cycle, and also worked with the regular career office for internships and permanent jobs. There are two career fairs on campus but not many on campus interviews for engineering, I think more for business.
If a student is more of a go-getter, or a software person, they will not have this experience. And I don’t know how it is for the other disciplines.
I was hoping DD would at least be able to get some internship experience at Case. I get a little concerned when I hear that 50% go on for post graduate work after graduation. I got the impression that graduates try for both jobs and grad school and go to grad school if a job is not available.
I’ve also heard good things about the chemical engineering capstones. I think chemical engineering is one of the majors https://students.case.edu/career/resources/survey/doc/2015fds.pdf that has good job placement. Looks like about half of the students find employment at the companies listed. Perhaps look into opportunities at the companies known to take Case’s Chemes. They are listed in this document.
I think students who study macromolecular engineering or polymer science may have more opportunities after an undergrad degree, than general chemical engineering majors typically do out there from any college. . A chemical engineer typically needs to pick a specialization and do graduate work in either semiconductors for the electronics industry, or biochemistry for the pharmaceutical industry or petroleum specific focus for the oil and gas industry. In most cases, chemical engineers need a masters degree to get enough training to be useful in industry.
Computer science /software is very unusual in that there is need for coders in all industries.
Chemical engineers with coding experience can try for those jobs!
A career in Chemical engineering is different in that one must further specialize. Some students may get jobs out of undergrad, but they will likely go for more training, in a specific area such as petroleum or semiconductors. The semiconductor industry likes PhDs in fact that have taken some electrical engineering or device physics.
Engineers really do need advanced training in today’s world. Electronics manufacturing versus petroleum versus chemical manufacturing are very different from each other, so the knowledge for a semiconductor clean room position does not overlap very much with the knowledge needed to invent new drugs, or run a chemical plant.
I felt that it was worth creating an account here to provide counterpoints to marbles321, because the frustrated opinions of a single disgruntled student should not deter prospective students (or their parents) from considering Case engineering. I am also a senior BME student, currently going through the exact same BME capstone course as the original poster. I feel marbles321’s objections (here and on other threads) are largely unfounded. There are too many things to comment on, so I’ll just touch on a few here.
“Students can lose up to 30% of their grade if they are not well liked by their teammates. It’s subjective.”
Yes. Yes yes yes. This is completely true. It is also COMPLETELY justified. Engineering is ALL teamwork. In school and in the real world. You CANNOT succeed if you are unable to work on a team. Case BME students are not cutthroat in any sense of the word. Quite the opposite - say what you will about Case, but there’s no denying that the sense of community and togetherness of students in a classroom is incredible. If you’re a good teammate, you’ll receive good peer review scores. If you’re an okay/average teammate, you’ll still receive good peer review scores, because again, the sense of community is so strong here. If you receive bad peer review scores, it’s because you’re a bad teammate. Period. It is not a faulty system. It’s simply an indication that you yourself need to improve. But this happens rarely, because most people’s peer review scores are great. There are (ungraded) checkpoints of these peer reviews throughout the semester, so you are given plenty of opportunity to address and adjust your conduct, should you need to.
“Projects are chosen by another algorithm. Pertinent skills are disregarded. You pick your top 3 and pray. You don’t get to choose a project that aligns with your skills and interests.”
Not true. You do have to rank your top three project choices. You are assigned your first choice unless another team wants the same, in which case you’re assigned your second choice. But there is such a wide selection of project options that this really isn’t ever too much of a concern.
“Projects are not impressive.”
This is entirely false. A project is what you make of it. YOU pick the project. YOU design the solution. Our class this semester is composed of 21 design teams. One of these teams designed and built a custom prosthetic foot for a 12 year old gymnast. Her life will be changed. Another one of these teams was just awarded $100,000 in funding from the government of Ohio for their IV port sterilization device. They are now partnering with a local design firm to move towards commercialization, beyond their graduation. Another team designed a strabismus measurement device that won first place at CWRU’s research symposium this year. They won the main undergraduate engineering research competition at an esteemed engineering research institution. I could go on and on, but I’ll leave it at that.
“Proposing your own capstone is highly discouraged.”
The professors simply wanted students to be sure of their self-proposed project before committing completely to it. There is no conspiracy theory to force “students to fall in line and use the algorithm.” Again, algorithm is a very loose term here. Students are in no way discouraged, but merely encouraged to think things through. But it is true that most projects are not self-proposed. A huge chunk of projects come from real professionals, clinicians, engineers, or researchers who approach the department with real world problems and request that a student design team be put to the task of finding a solution. Real world engineering very often involves partnership with non-engineers, so this is in no way a bad thing. And these people usually stay close to the project as mentors and provide guidance.
“Part ordering takes 4 weeks.”
This, unfortunately, is often true. But I don’t think this is uncommon. It is also quite representative of what happens in the real world. Resources and materials don’t just appear. They must be approved, purchased, delivered, processed, etc. That’s just how the world works. And here at Case, if you URGENTLY need materials, you can always order them yourself and be completely reimbursed without much hassle. Marbles321’s comment about “self-funding” is just outright misrepresentation.
“No technical advisors”
As mentioned before, a huge percentage of these projects are brought to the class by real world professionals who stay on as mentors. For those that aren’t, the teachers of this course are VERY accomplished engineers, researchers, and entrepreneurs. Plus this is, again, a highly esteemed research institution that is also affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic, as well as University Hospitals (two of the best medical and research facilities in the world), and the VA (where they conduct pioneering research studies). There is no shortage of highly qualified and approachable experts, should you need help.
“Students have requested (to me) that they avoid doing engineering work for their capstone.”
What? This is either entirely untrue, or taken entirely out of context.
I can keep going, but it’s getting late. Suffice it to say, marbles321’s opinions are not the only ones present in the Case BME community here.
@blueCWRU Thank you for taking the time to post. My son was so impressed with the BME program at CWRU during his overnight visit, he has decided to attend CWRU and major in BME. BME Overview was very popular and it seems to me about the same size of crowd attended BME session as that for Engineering session as a whole. So I was wondering is there a possibility that there will be an unusually large class for 2020? With CWRU single door admission policy, how can CWRU control the class size? As a senior, are you planning to go into industries or to the grad school? How competitive it is for BME undergrads to get admitted into good BME graduate programs either at CWRU or other top BME graduate programs? Thanks.
Like @blueCWRU, I too am creating an account to dispel some of the notions that marbles321 has presented. It would be irresponsible to idly stand by and allow the opinions of a single disillusioned BME student to discourage prospective students from attending a world-class institution. By all means, CWRU is not perfect, but neither is any school out there. I am here to present opinions and evidence contrary to marble321’s claims, which are much more widely accepted by my BME classmates than marble321’s.
I’m a senior BME student here at CWRU, and have worked on the same project as marbles321. I find that many of her comments are simply disrespectful to the professors and faculty that assist us with our projects. When marble321 claims that you only meet with BME course leads once or twice a semester, that is correct that on the syllabus there are two formal design reviews incorporated in the process. However, there is absolutely NOTHING that is preventing us from scheduling additional time with the course lead should we run into issues. There has never been a time here at CWRU where professors were not willing to meet if assistance was requested. If at any point in time we felt lost or unguided, we could have simply asked for more assistance or guidance. Asking for help is our own prerogative, not for our course leads to magically know how each senior capstone is progressing.
Part ordering takes 4 weeks. Of course. It also takes 4 weeks for anybody else working on a design project. That’s reality. When coupled with the fact that a semester is only 16 weeks long, and the fact that you never order parts until you are finished with design, it is no wonder that it may feel like procurement is rushed and stressful. However, that’s just reality. No need to complain about it. The department does not expect a finished, polished, marketable device. It expects a prototype. This should have been kept in mind at the very beginning, during the design phase. When you add bells and whistles such as bluetooth connectivity when there is not a single design requirement that calls for wireless connection, then that is when you create more problems for yourself. Learning how to manage time is just as important as learning how to design the device.
Unmotivated peers is an extremely judgmental sentiment by marble321. Is it an insinuation that “the business sphere, going on to med school, graduate school, or doing the MEM program” is any “less than” to pure engineering? Each person’s interests are their interests, and theirs alone. I find it extremely ironic that marble321 speaks of the “art of engineering,” as if we as seniors we have any significant real life engineering experience. Along the lines of “the art of engineering,” part of engineering is designing efficient solutions. If someone else has already built the instrumentation needed, and you have the budget, why would you reinvent the wheel?
Projects are not impressive. Like I said, the school expects a prototype, not a finished product. It’s not realistic that every project senior capstone project will be earth shattering. Tying this in with selecting projects, groups are formed and allowed to rank which project they’d like to work on. These projects are specifically chosen by the course lead, because they represent real life issues that they have identified, which also meet the ABET requirements for the class. The course lead has over 20 years of industry, research, and teaching experience. They have the foresight and experience to see which self-proposed projects might not be suitable, which we do not. Getting frustrated at the class/course lead is not productive. What do we expect? To graduate, go to an engineering company, and work on whatever project or idea that takes us on a whim? Simply not realistic; of course projects will be assigned to us. The purpose of college is not only to become mature in our technical skills, but to also mature as professionals looking to enter the workforce.
Course material is wrong. As mentioned before, we have an extremely experienced and inspirational course lead. Who are we to say what is right or wrong? Yes, on paper, standards and regulations are supposed to be followed to the letter. It should be very black and white. In the real world? There are plenty of interpretations; we had discussed in class why there are so many issues with FDA approval and the system, simply to interpretation of the rules. So many companies are undergoing remediation BECAUSE of interpretation of these standards and regulations. For us to claim that the course lead is incorrect is completely unfair.
Finally and most importantly, students CAN lose up to 30% if their grade if their team members believe they have not contributed to the team. Notice I said “contributed to the team,” and not “well liked” as marble321 describes it. blueCWRU described this perfectly. Engineering is ALL teamwork. If you do not work well on a team, you won’t succeed. If you don’t fulfill your responsibilities, you aren’t contributing to the team. If you act as team lead when you’re not, you aren’t contributing to the team. The reason senior capstone is designed as a team project is specifically because of industry feedback stating that students need strong teamwork skills.
This has been an extremely long response, but I will wrap it up with this. As college students, it is our JOB to complain about assignments. We will always complain about the length of that 10 page paper, the difficulty of the dynamics homework, or the fact that tests all line up in the same week. However, it is also our PRIVILEGE to attend such an amazing school. It is our privilege to learn from professors who are making a difference in real life and conduct leading edge research. It is a privilege to have the resources and connections, such as University Hospitals and Cleveland Clinic, that we enjoy. But most importantly, it is our RESPONSIBILITY as students and aspiring engineers to learn and develop our skills. Complaining about the perceived difficulties, when these difficulties are designed to mimic real life situations, is simply unrealistic and irresponsible.
@TigerBeach As far as I know, admissions numbers have stayed more or less consistent over the last four years (somewhere around 1200-1400 newly enrolled undergraduates each year). I’m not sure of the numbers for this incoming class. BME is always a popular major for freshman, so that may explain the BME Overview attendance you saw. I’d estimate my freshman BME class to be 200-300 students. A large percentage always switches to another non-engineering major during their first year, before they take any BME specific courses, just because they realize engineering in general is not for them (which is 100% okay, there are plenty of other fantastic and rewarding majors here). This is the benefit of the single-door admissions policy - students are in no way pressured to decide anything before they are ready. There are 97 students in our final senior capstone course. This doesn’t include the students who took time off to study abroad, or to work a co-op or internship, or graduated early.
To address your concerns about class size: BME here is separated into four sequences. These require different and more focused coursework, so classes get smaller and smaller as students progress through the program. There are some courses that all BMEs must take, but class size still has never really been an issue.
I myself am planning on medical school, and then industry farther down the road. Many students here are on joint BS/MS programs. Several others are moving on to a pure graduate education. I have friends accepted to Yale, Rice, MIT, etc. Some others are headed to industry. Many of these are double majoring in another engineering specialty. And others are moving more towards the business/management end of things. But I’d encourage your son to not worry about any of that now. BME is different than what most of the public generally perceives, and it’s tough to become set on a career path without really being exposed to true BME material first. There is plenty of time to explore and decide.
@spartanblue, I agree wholeheartedly.
Can you seniors respond to my questions above now?
I would like to change my stance a bit to better frame some ideas that I had in the beginning of capstone. Now that capstone is wrapping up, I would say capstone tends to go alright if you are taking it from the biomechanics or biocomputing perspective. My issues with the capstone come in for students on the biomedical instrumenation track.
This group is the most underprepared for industry out of all the tracks at CWRU. If you are going biomedical instrumentation, I would recommend going to University of Michigan. Between both the EE and BME department, we do not have one well put together instrumentation course or a design based biomedical circuit experience. EBME 418 - biomedical circuits, which is listed on the website is no longer taught.
It is well known to the EECS students that our EE and CE degrees are not competitive, which in turn weakens the BME devices degree that takes classes at EECS.
- The mechanical and electrical engineering capstone's are given a direct technical adviser they meet with once a week. You can find the resources on your own yes, but this is highly uncommon in other capstones. It is common for other capstones to have a weekly technical meetings with a professor with years of experience in the research area.
The advisers for BME capstone are fine, but I prefer the structure found in other majors.
They do give us supplemental graduate students to help us with our projects. Our graduate student was quite good, but it’s different when you have a professor with many years of experience directly monitoring the health of your project every single week.
- In the electrical engineering capstone part ordering takes 1 week maximum. Many teams are currently struggling to finish because they received parts late into the semester. I have self-funded many parts on my project to avoid this issue. Also many teams have started using glennan to get the parts they need in response to this, so it doesn't take 4 weeks for everyone.
- I had members of my team directly ask me if they could avoid doing engineering work for their capstone. Every team is different, but that was what I was handed the first week in, and I haven't fought them on that stance
Much of my team has also refused to do a literature review or read datasheets for our project, which has stagnated our ability to move forward as a team.
Again, this is the weakness of the devices track showing through. Students aren’t comfortable doing basic EE tasks. My teammates have told me directly they did not get much out of the biomedical instrumenatation course and are having trouble reading datasheets, thinking about filters, and applying EE skills to design circuits.
Also there is some merit to buying what you need for a capstone. Why build an EEG headset when the department will fund one? Well, to actually learn how it works and better crystallize how to design medical devices.
The biggest thing that the capstone teams struggle with is biomedical instrumentation because it is the weakest of the four tracks. Many teams opt to buy pre-built parts from suppliers , and work within that framework. This is fine, but employers for biomedical devices jobs in industry will hire the student who went and built the emg,ekg, and eeg with the correct skills over the student who bought the sparkfun myowave to solve the circuit component of their capstone.
Also many employers opt to pass over the BME students for a qualified EE student. That’s who the competition is in industry.
It is also clear as day to the EE minded people in the room that quite a few of the capstones consist of a bunch of store bought parts strung together with an arduino. There are some exceptions to this, and those teams are doing quite well. If a team has succeeded in a hardware pursuit, it is likely due to self study and not the curriculum at Case…
Our biomedical instrumentation coursework has no microcontrollers or a good instrumentation class. I would not recommend it if you wish to go into industry to do that sort of thing.
- There are some highly sucessful capstone projects. The weakest point of the capstone projects is the electronics components because students are not being prepared for the devices track well by the curriculum.
As I mentioned before, I hadn’t fully internalized what was bothering me about the capstone until I thought about it from a biomedical instrumentation student’s perspective.
- I am not going to debate the bit on teamwork. However, I have heard from other students they will rate everyone on the team including themselves low to rig the teamwork evaluation. BME students are highly competitive and they can objectively do this to level the grades.
Decide for yourself on the standards versus regulations thing. There wasn’t any examples of how standards influence modern consumer goods and medical devices in this course. i. imgur. com /xr9K6Qe.png . I don’t like when lectures take a theatrical tone and cover a bunch of slides without grounding the concepts how standards allow modern devices to connect to each other and prevent excessive noise emissions.
The lead professors told us the last team that proposed their own bme capstone had the lowest scores in the course. Direct quote.
@blueCWRU Thank you so much for your reply. My son has decided to attend CWRU with BME major and looks very excited. I have put in the deposit for him at CWRU. He originally planned to major finance or economics. It was quite a change of direction, to me at least. We will see.
You said: "I think students who study macromolecular engineering or polymer science may have more opportunities after an undergrad degree, than general chemical engineering majors typically do out there from any college. "
May I ask, why is that?
@LanaHere here is how I see the changes from when I got a degree to today. I am sure others may disagree or have other opinions, but here goes!
Polymer science is more specialized, in a nutshell. (there are negatives to overspecialization but industries do like bachelors graduates with specific knowledge ) But also the expansion of use of plastics over the last 30 years.
Engineers my age, (mid 50s) such as materials scientists with polymer speciality appeared to have more opportunities in many industries and get promotions compared to ceramic engineers, semiconductor specialists or metallurgists, the other specialties that materials scientists focus on. . I am dated though, having gotten my materials science degree in 1982. (I focused on semiconductors, which some chemical engineers do too ) Polymers was a good field to be in for engineers my age, as more and more products are made of plastic, such as many parts of a car, electronics such as printers, computers, and all sorts of consumer goods that used to be made from metal, now use composites or plastics for lighter weight.
Chemical engineers did very well in the 80s and then seemed to slip some in the 1990s and later, from what I saw. This is due in part to the semiconductor industry shutting down a lot of cleanrooms in the USA in favor of very large foundries in a few places like Taiwan, East Germany, and Japan. But the US has some cleanrooms left such as the old IBM cleanrooms in Vermont that now belong to Global Foundries. I am less familiar with the chemical industry, but my perception is that its very automated today, as is pharmaceutical manufacturing, requires less engineers than in the 1970s and 1980s.
Oil and Gas hires a lot of chemical engineers though, so as long as we continue to stay in fossil fuels, chemical engineers are going to be in that industry, as well as the chemical, pharmaceutical and many other industries. Also chemical engineers can and do get hired by many plastics companies or the tire companies in Akron which are well tied to CWRU.
Chemical engineers can get into many other fields like patent law, photovoltaics, medicine, business or consulting. I see it as a very good degree, my degree is similar and I was able to move into patent law and later back into research. Bachelors engineers often need another degree (masters, MBA, Law, PhD, MD etc ) to keep a career going in today’s world.
Any multidisciplinary degree like Chemical engineering is very strong, as the student knows chemistry, fluids, mechanical principals and some learn electrical principals too.
I would also like to weigh in on this discussion, as I am currently a senior at CWRU and I feel that marbles321 is grossly misrepresenting the state of our BME department. I was a BME for two years before I finally decided to leave the department, and I am going to explain why I left in the hopes that it will reveal the source of Marbles’ frustrations.
Every single professor I had during my time as an engineer at CWRU made an announcement at some point during their classes that was along the lines of, “If you want to go into industry as an engineer, DO NOT MAJOR IN BME.” As they would then explain, this is because there is a very limited availability of jobs for BMEs, since every other type of engineer is going to be more qualified for any job that a BME in their corresponding track would like to apply for. Thus, if you are interested in the Biomaterials track (as I was) you should be a ChemE/Materials/Polymers engineer, or if you are interested in the Biomechanics track you should be a MechE, or if you are interested in Bioelectrics and instrumentation you should be an EE or CS major cough Marbles cough. However, if you are interested in pursuing your PhD because you want to do biomedical research, then BME is a perfectly fine undergraduate major. In addition, if you are interested in pursuing a professional degree or think you might want to get into grad school for something, doing well in BME at CWRU will get you into pretty much every school you apply to. I promise.
I definitely did not want to go into industry, so I was ok to stay in BME, but with the large number of extra prerequisite courses that I needed to pursue professional school, I found that staying in BME was not a smart decision because the schedule does not leave much room for extra courses and overall my interests lied more heavily on the biomedical side of things and not really at all on the engineering side of things. Based on Marbles’ rant, I think she made the mistake of not heeding the advice of all of our professors because she was so stuck on the idea of being a BME that she lost sight of what would truly be beneficial to her as a future engineer working in industry. As a result, I think it is unfair of you, Marbles, to criticize the CWRU BME department when your unhappiness is simply the result of your own inability to properly plan for your future. Perhaps this immaturity and inability to take responsibility for your own actions and decisions is what led to the low teamwork score that you received from the other students in your capstone group. I sincerely hope that you will take this opportunity to reflect on yourself as a person and use this experience to better prepare yourself for all of your future endeavors.
As for all of the parents and prospective students reading this thread, I truly hope that you will not base your decision about CWRU on what one misguided student had to say. I love CWRU, and I am so glad that I went here. My friends who stayed in BME to pursue PhDs were accepted to schools such as Georgia Tech, University of Washington, Rice, CalTech, UChicago, Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford, and CWRU. My one friend who stayed in BME with the intent of going into industry still managed to receive an amazing job offer, and even I will be attending my dream school next year. I genuinely believe that I would not have been as fortunate with my acceptances to grad schools if I hadn’t attended case, as it is an extremely well-respected school. The opportunities available to the students here are unparalleled, and the community is incredibly nurturing and supportive. I honestly can’t say enough about how wonderful my undergraduate experience at Case has been.
I think one issue here is that marbles thinks he understands hiring and industry, despite being one guy/girl with one job offer with a mixed degree (BME/EE) and maybe a mixed focus. In marbles’ defense, it appears that they have strung together a program that has gotten them a job offer of interest. To their detriment, they seem bent of criticizing the path they took to get there and the place that helped them (i find it hard to believe the job offer is in spite of rather than because of Case’s program or reputation).
I think I could believe there are more BME majors than exciting jobs for BS level students. That is true in many fields, where specialized skills are needed or the field is very complex … or more likely because the field is in an active development phase, where new things are being developed, that doesn’t involve tons of middle-of-the-road new hires, but instead needs innovators and highly skilled EKG experts who can enhance that.
Really cutting edge design jobs are rare in any field. For example, aerospace … most people are doing iterations on designs that have already flown in space, the dread TRL-8 and higher in NASA lingo. Few people are doing truly new designs that push the envelope. Most have masters, there are many PhDs, many physicists, as well. Honestly, my coursework for my masters is much more useful for real blank paper designs or major increases in performance than the plug this value into this equation type work I did for my BS.
so just like I won’t hire a BS new hire to design a state of the art satellite system, it is likely that no one will hire a BS BME to design an EKG. They won’t hire 6 and have them team up to build a EKG, they would bring one on to an established team, maybe (more likely to hire the MS or PhD). If it is a circuits or CS problem, sure they will bring in an EE, similarly a ME.
what many people do is take that mediocre job, excel, volunteer, continue to educate themselves via self-teacher or night MS or learning software on their own or whatever … and then become a good candidate for that next team being formed in year 3 of your career … or for that opening at a company with more exciting work. Tell them you did XYZ, show off your new MS degree, whatever.
If you can’t get along with your team and convince them to adopt a team oriented rating system (this is sort of a Tragedy of the Commons problem), my guess is you will be unpopular at your new workplace and will be completely unable to navigate a career with lots of people who are competing or otherwise scheming to different ends than you. Especially if you want a prime position, high pay, leadership position, etc.
Seriously, consider this a learning experience, do a 360 type review asking your teammates, instructors, etc for helpful comments on how to work better on a team. Considering you had 3 years to pick teammates … you should have known who would be a good partner, and yes, maybe a med school bound teammate is not a good choice. Then again, a good team has lots of different types of people, so a good leader would have found something more compelling for them than a parts list or whatever you wanted to stick them with (do those at 3am with a good beer, you are 21).
Case is somewhat unusual in that it is open door and you can easily double major, minor, second major, etc. so it has resources … and I would think there are experts in everything you are not familiar with right there on the quad.
for a 3 month design project, putting together a group of components and having them actually work is not a lame project. Real design projects can take years, or start with a working product that needs tweaking. Real design projects have senior staff on the team or available or at meetings or at reviews who can help you put together something (which is way more than available at a college). You have built your first prototype … great … if you had a job doing this you would discover that component X needs tweaking or your software is cruddy or whatever.
I am not sure there is an infinite demand for junior coders or that these will be long career jobs, unless the lucky winners of the Google jobs actually teach themselves something of value while coding apps or whatever.
I think the number of polymer and material science programs and graduates is probably low enough, and these fields valuable enough to explain why these engineers are being gobbled up (and Case has a good program). The run of the mill Chem Es, not sure how they will hold up in a cheap petroleum world … unless someone comes up with a good use of that cheap fuel.
And ChemE process engineering won’t satisfy many BME students. You do have to do what you like and can really get interested in … not just what has jobs when you declare majors (world is fickle, 2 years could change everything).
Sorry long post…
@PickOne1 nice post. I would add one point, petroleum engineering is a regional speciality. Texas, Colorado,Wyoming and Oklahoma have a lot of jobs in this industry. Natural gas exploration and use is expanding in the USA as the coal industry is slowly shrinking. Case’s Chemical Engineering department may not be as well connected to this industry, but still a viable career for a chemical engineer who gets a masters in petroleum engineering. Look at U of Texas, U of Oklahoma, Colorado School of Mines for best petroleum programs. There is still plenty of oil companies out there hiring, although slumps happen in all engineering disciplines. Intel just layed off 10% of their entire worldwide workforce, if that says anything about the volatile semiconductor chip design industry!!!. Maybe @Marbles123 should be GLAD she is not in computer architecture after all, CE is not the best major right now either given AMD and Intel doing so poorly.
Women sometimes get lower scores on teamwork than men. Not because they are bad team players, but because those judging are men, and men like other men!! Many women at HP in the 1990s complained about this, and it was reflected in lower ranks for women back then at HP. So it may be that @marbles123 was in there with very aggressive men, or men who were best pals on the Case swim or soccer team, and she got a lower score because she indeed does not fit in as well, being female, or not having other characteristics that the men valued.
This type of peer grading that Case apparently uses for the BME capstone and EE capstone, is very good prep for for whats coming as an engineer! She will have to get along well to do well on most group projects in engineering and unfortunately that means sometimes learning to shut up and let men direct things. Its just how it is for women in engineering, if they are the only female on the team. Its a slow process to be HEARD by men. Case may help women get used to the reality that is engineering, but it is painful for very smart well educated women to have to get along with aggressive groups of men,as the only female member.
I don’t know if thats the story, but its just how I see peer grading. Peer grading often does not work well for a solo woman on an mostly male team, but its the reality to face, how do your coworkers LIKE you? What does it take to be well liked? Its really important to get along well with all peers and managers in getting promotions in industry.