Choosing Biomedical Engineering vs. Biomedical Science

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I am a first year Graduate student pursuing my Master's in Biomedical Engineering. I chose this major over Biomedical science, in spite of my background in Health Science (which is more Biology based). The advisors did mention that one did not necessarily need a background in Engineering to pursue this degree. </p>

<p>After the 1st series of classes, I was wondering if I was way over my head choosing to go the BME route or if BMS would be more manageable for me or not. Since it is early in the semester, I was wondering if it would be a good idea to change my major.</p>

<p>Can anyone offer any advice to me?</p>

<p>Of course, I won't base my entire decision solely on academic difficulty... What is the projected job growth in each field?</p>

<p>How would I fair salary wise for either one?</p>

<p>If anyone can help facilitate my decision it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.</p>

<p>Personally, I would wait it out a semester (or at least most of it) before making such a decision. I can’t really offer any advice from experience, though…</p>

<p>I am wondering what you’re finding particularly difficult, though. I’m a neuroscience major and am considering grad school for either biomedical engineering or neuroscience. As someone else without an engineering background, I’m curious what your perspective is on it.</p>

<p>Biomedical engineering is much more applied math than your probably used to…but if you have differential equations down you should be fine. The ‘Bio’ in Biomedical Engineering can be deceiving. You sound none to happy about doing much less biology research and much more dynamics and stress analysis…</p>

<p>If you want to help design new emerging products that are bio-related then stay BME…also the job pays well, but you must be proficient at the design end of it. If you want to do lab work then BMS might be better for you. I would recommend you sit down and read the journals for BME and BMS and decide for yourself what you like better.</p>

<p>nanotechnology,</p>

<p>I actually am thinking about waiting it out a semester, but the courses are very expensive so I want to be as efficient as possible.</p>

<p>So far, what worries me about BME is that there is so much mathematics involved (like jimijack100 mentioned). I haven’t done much mathematics since the beginning of my undergrad which was a little while back. </p>

<p>Classes like Biosimulation even Biostatistics can wear you down fast if you aren’t a mathophiliac.</p>

<p>Bump…</p>

<p>Well, this semester is over, I got a taste of BMES. Statistics was a bit tricky but manageable. A lot of Z-tests, T-tests, ANOVA’s, etc… There are plenty of resources of it online (like Kahn academy).</p>

<p>Medical science… well, it’s mainly Biology… (DNA, proteins, cell & tissues, cancer, etc…) just a lot of memorization, definitely something you can do well in if you just study… (Although my Professor for some reason expected us to memorize every single thing)</p>

<p>Now… Biosimulation was “The Devil”. Hard material (not that my Prof. or TA’s helped too much)… Differential equations, Phase Plane Analysis… Linear regression. These are not exactly something you can just pick up overnight. And there are few resources for this online… or at least not any resources that will speak to you like someone who just picked up the course. The good news is other students said this is one of the hardest classes in the department, but I would have to take Biosimulation II… so I’m not too crazy about that.</p>