<p>“I just wish my parents had told me this before I’d filled out all the applications and gotten my hopes up. Do you think that I’ll regret not going to Hopkins/Duke?”</p>
<p>If you go in to Michigan with the attitude that it’s your back up and your not going to enjoy it there, then you’re going to have regrets from day one. Look, there is an excellent chance you might change your mind about what area of engineering you’ll want to major in. You do realize that Michigan trumps JHU and Duke in overall engineering correct? If you want to leave engineering and major in a liberal arts discipline, Michigan once again is very strong across the board in any area of concentration you might be interested in. To be honest, I don’t know why you are even contemplating attending any of the other schools anymore. You are going to Michigan TUITION FREE. That is an impressive stat right there!</p>
<p>I would go to Michigan and save money for medical school or graduate school. Very hard to get a good job with just an undergraduate in bio-med. People with 4.0 and high MCAT goes not guarantee admission to med school. There are other things in the application that goes into the consideration. </p>
<p>We looked at all these schools a few years back. As I recall JHU has the strongest bio-med program, is very competitive, small school compared to all other 3. We liked it but not the top of the list. We liked Duke better. We liked Michigan also. Bio-med was not as strong but other engineering disciplines are. Their engineering school seemed to have the best facility. We like Cornell the least, both the program and the campus. Michigan would have been his top choice among the four. In the end, son decided on bio-med at UVA (in-state) and applied early decision. We told him was save the money, then he can go anywhere he likes for graduate or medical school. </p>
<p>He was accepted in the bio-med program at UVA but changed his mind and decided to do systems engineering with economics as double major. Reason was that he looked into job opportunities. Job market for bio-med seemed to be very localized and most required advanced degree. He wanted to start working after college. Graduate school and research did not appeal to him. He did wanted to have a back up plan in mind when applying to college in case that he did not want bio-med.</p>
<p>Compared to more traditional forms of engineering, biomedical job opportunities are relatively limited. If I recall, the following companies were here at Duke last Fall to recruit BMEs specifically: GE healthcare, Stryker, Edward Lifescience, Boston Scientific, Smith & Sons, St. Jude Medical (not the hospital), and a few more.</p>
<p>Of these, St. Jude Medical paid the best (>100k) but it’s an insanely competitive program to get into and can be difficult work. For the 1st two years of the program, you’d have to take the same cardiology classes that MDs take, getting the same certifications. With that certification, you cover some geographic area and assist doctors therein with heart surgeries having to do with pacemakers and other cardio-implants. All the other jobs at the other companies have to do with medical device design (structural implants, endoscopes, various meters and measurement devices, etc.).</p>
<p>Also, a large number of engineers at Duke, of all majors, go into consulting or finance. Neither field necessarily requires a concrete knowledge of anything, but rather appreciates the critical and quantitative thinking skills an engineering program teaches. Deloitte and Boston Consulting Group recruit heavily at Duke. One of my friends got a job at Deloitte, and he’s starting at 70k, and he’s not by any means a superstar.</p>