<p>A while ago, I stumbled upon a pretty old thread from about 2007, with a title akin to "Don't major in Bioengineering!" </p>
<p>In essence, it was a group of posters brandishing sticks at BE/BME/ChemE, saying they were "fad majors", were useless with just undergrad degrees, worthless, etc. And this was BEFORE the recession....sheesh. Oh, and of course, people saying just to major in Mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering.</p>
<p>Does this still happen within the engineering community?</p>
<p>ChemE is one of the most difficult, not sure where you got your info from. The Bio ones are pretty gimmicky though. It’s like a strange mixture of random courses from other engineering discipline with no real focus.</p>
<p>Yakyu you are absolutely right. No, that is all wrong bme is the fastest growing job market in the nation. BME is at the heart of all medical research, if you have ever met a non-engineering PhD in medicine you would know that they generally cannot design products, nor stray to far from conventional thought. This is where bme comes in because it allows us to innovate and also investigate systems in quantitative terms rather than just “Oh this looks like…” or “I think it’s purple” as is common of those who lack a heavy problem solving background.</p>
<p>i have no idea why people would make fun of ChemE or BME, seeing as they are two of the harder engineering degrees that are offered, as well as having upward trending job growth.
BioE is more like what yakyu said, kinda similar to environmental engineering in my opinion.</p>
<p>ChemE is pretty widely accepted, except maybe by a few old school thinkers.</p>
<p>BME is still making itself into something at this point. Even though it is the fastest growing engineering job markets, it is also pretty much the smallest (making it relatively easier to grow at a faster pace). The other engineering job markets are pretty established at this point.</p>
<p>As an undergraduate major, BME seems to be figuring itself out. Other schools may approach it differently, but what I’ve seen at my school is a curriculum spanning biological applications of mechE, chemE, and EE. The biological applications in themselves are extremely complex, making it a very rigorous major and courseload; but students graduate with knowledge not as intensive/deep into one field as students in mechE/chemE/EE.</p>
<p>In the end, engineering is not something to laugh at, but the less established variations will always be fighting for their place.</p>
<p>ChemE is unequivocally a “real” engineering field. </p>
<p>As for bioengineering/BME, it’s a mixed bag. Some schools have you take Intro EE/ME/ChemE/MatSci/… as your core courses, so you don’t come out knowing many things. Other schools, however, have you minor in or concentrate in another field of engineering (ChemE/EE/ME/MatSci).</p>
<p>However, some of the things you can concentrate in are designed to lead into a grad school, so job prospects as a professional engineer are somewhat limited in those fields (tissue engineering concentrations come to mind.)</p>
<p>Interestingly enough, Carnegie Mellon University only offers BME as a double major alongside a traditional engineering discipline, and IMO that’s the best way to go.</p>
<p>I probably digressed a bit, but there you go. Please correct me if I’m wrong.</p>