<p>Hey everyone, I am going to be a freshman at University of Maryland-College Park next year and am trying to decide between civil engineering and bioengineering for my major. Does anyone know anything about these two fields. I would very much appreciate any information you have regarding coursework and the number and types of jobs open to people with one of those majors after college, as well as any advice.</p>
<p>You might want to go looking through some threads down in the Engineering forum on this site.</p>
<p>Well, first off those majors are as different as light and day. You would be doing entirely different things! Bioengineering usually has you do a lot of researching. Depending on what specifically you wanna do in bioengineering, you could be someone who works closely with hospitals, designing machinery that can interact with the body. Or you could do something like cellular, genetic, or tissue bioengineering, where you could design … well … organs, which I have always thought was neat. Unfortunately, the most recent news of functioning organs was a bladder I believe, so that needs a little work. The entire major is HUGE and “up and coming”, but I predict that every other kid going into engineering will want to pursue bioengineering because of this and end up oversaturating the market</p>
<p>Civil engineering will be a step in another direction. Here you focus on the application of physics to design bridges and buildings. You will be collaborating a lot here, but you REALLY REALLY want to be good at physics. I wanted to do Civil Engineering, but I found that I was really no good at physics and my physical engineering classes. You would probably be sent to a lot of places that need building, perhaps even as far as foriegn countries.</p>
<p>Search through the Engineering Forum – you’ll find a lot of information. Also take a look at [Sloan</a> Career Cornerstone Center: Careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math & Healthcare](<a href=“http://www.careercornerstone.org/engineering/engineering.htm]Sloan”>Career Cornerstone Center: Careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math and Medicine). Anything specific, ask away in the Engineering Forum. There are quite a few regular recent civil engineering grad posters there (including myself).</p>
<p>Basically, bioengineering is one of the newest engineering majors and civil engineering is one of the oldest. Civil is 2nd in terms of the number of jobs in the U.S. (behind electrical/computer) and is the most wide spread. You have civil engineers in every town. I’ve heard bioengineering positions tend to be concentrated in the Boston area.</p>