Hello all, my daughter is hell bent on applying to GA Tech. She will graduate HS in 2019. We are trying to keep her in Florida, primarily because we have the FL prepaid College Program and the cost is guaranteed.
UF has a great Biomedical Engineering program. So does Florida Institute of Technology. Is it really worth the expense for her to attend GA Tech vs FIT?
Ga Tech is not easy for an out of stater to get into these days. That said, if she can get in, and if you can afford it ( and use the prepaid $, though you will be forfeiting the interest) , FL Tech and Fl Polytech do not hold a candle to GT. UF and FSU would be better instate options. Don’t think Central FL has an undergrad Biomed engineering program, but you should double check.
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Georgia Tech is great if daughter can get in and afford it.
Florida Tech is a good choice. You’d get a FRAG of $3300, BF credit, and a merit scholarship of up to half tuition, so that often comes out to about full tuition. You could save your FPP for grad school or use it for room and board. There are a lot of internship and co-op opportunities in the area and many student do co-ops for 6 months in other parts of the country or even overseas. The labs are very nice, the special projects a lot of fun. Living by the ocean is a lot nicer than living in the swamp.
You can make Florida tech as cheap as a Florida public with some creative accounting, but with Bright Futures now covering full tuition, it is really hard to pass up the public schools. For my daughter, Florida Tech has worked out great but she had an athletic scholarship and an opportunity to play she wouldn’t have received at UF or other big school. She’s has no issues with impacted classes or meeting with professors. They’ve done a pretty good job getting the students through two hurricanes.
@AG2001mom Agree with @jym626. FIT isn’t in the same league as GaTech. Not even remotely close. I’d pick most of the FL Public Universities (UF, FSU, UCF, USF at least) over FIT to be quite honest. The school is less selective than the top FL Public Universities (61% acceptance rate) and it has an unusually large international student population (nearly 1/3rd the student body).
Don’t they also have a large on line population?
They do, but it’s an entirely different program. Florida Tech has about 3500 students on campus. Quite a few take a class online while they do a co-op or internship (if you want to finish in 4 years, the online classes while on a co-op are part of the schedule). They also have a few satellite centers for classes around the US.
My daughter is graduating. Eight semesters, all on campus, no online classes (and no AP or DE credits either, just 131 regular program credits). A few of her friends have taken a class or two online. Her boyfriend is finishing his MBA where he took the first year on campus, and then the second year as a combination of online and in classroom at a satellite center.
Would she have received a “better” education at Georgia Tech? I don’t know, but it would have been more expensive. GT would have been about $200k, Florida Tech was about $8k. For all 4 years. She’ll have an ABET certified degree, and she has a job. Mission accomplished.
If she was offered a free education at GT would she have taken it? Absolutely. Or at almost any California school But she took the free one she was offered. And she loved living near the beach.
While GT is a great school, paying out of state tuition versus almost nothing is unwise financially. Definitely not worth it.
Not worth it, especially for an undergrad degree in BME, one of the more useless undergrad degrees. Any job in the field will require a graduate degree, so now you’re adding tens (or hundreds) of thousands on top.
Also, keep in mind, GT is notoriously difficult, and students there will tell you the BME kids work hardest of them all.
I don’t know about biomedical being harder than their other engineering degrees. That being said BME would tend to have premeds and GT can create gpa problems for med school.
Trust me, ask a GT student (like my son) and they’ll all tell you BME is the hardest major there.
@Chardo I wouldn’t call BME a “useless” degree. Career wise, it’s similar to any other STEM major (physics, chemistry, biology), except Engineering. Most STEM majors do need a graduate degree to work in their field, with engineering being something of an exception.
We lived in northern Florida when my kids were in hs, and I was very surprised that very few students went to schools in Georgia. In fact, I can only remember one going to a GA school. Reason? Money. Most stayed in Florida, one went to MIT, a sprinkle to Alabama and Mississippi schools, but GA just doesn’t give the money the others do. At that time, BF was only about $3k/yr so it was easier to justify forfeiting it for an OOS schools, especially with merit, but now BF is almost $7000. If the student gets any other awards, it comes very close to full COA.
Florida Tech (and Embry-Riddle) are trying to attract more females and thus offer a lot of opportunities. My daughter’s friend was a superstar MechE. She was president of her sorority, president of the MechE society, worked on the Jet Car team (and traveled the country doing that), won a million awards, and had 4 full tuition scholarship offers to grad school, including Georgia Tech, and she chose Columbia. The opportunities are there.
Look at South Florida too. Much nicer location than UF. Biomedical is a minor at UCF, and it isn’t near the beach.
FIT has a similar ranking to the state tech school my kid goes to. Neither are in the same tier as GA tech. But they have an ABET accredited program, and kids with solid gpa’s get good job offers or go on to grad school. High stats kids are treated like royalty and get lots of opportunities. My mid stat kid is quite happy and is challenged and doing well at not so prestigious instate tech school.
If she gets into GA tech and it’s affordable, then GA tech may be preferable. Bigger companies interview there for jobs and internships, and it has a more competitive pool of students. The financial component is the big factor, the way I see it.
As others have suggested, look at UF and other FL options too, which may be somewhere in between FIT and GA tech.
@Gator88NE useless may not be the best word choice, but general advice is that undergrad BME is not the wisest move. The specialized major can limit your options if you choose not to enter the field. A mechanical engineering undergrad, with some bio courses or concentration, is a more versatile (and somewhat less difficult) path that can get you to the same ultimate goal. Unless biology, and not engineering, is the true passion. In that case, MechE is probably a poor choice.
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@Chardo
Lets talk a second about MechE Vs BME. Not all BME programs are similar. Using UF’s program as an example, the BME curriculum shares little (other than the common critical tracking courses like Calculus) with the MechE program. MechE and BME are two completely different career choice.
UF’s BME program focuses on:
-Neural Engineering
-Imaging, Diagnostics & Therapeutics
-Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine
-Biomedical Data Science
and it’s co-located with the medical school, veterinary school and dental school. It’s also unique (at UF) in that you’re accepted into a pre-BME program as a freshman, for all other engineering majors, you’re accepted directly into the program. BME is a limited access program. You’re not accepted directly into the program until you’re a junior. UF does this to ensure the student is a likely candidate for grad school, medical school, etc. This HAS to be the students goal, or UF will not accept them into the program. By the time the student is a junior, they should be able to make an informed choice between sticking with BME, or switching to another major.
If the student does decide to enroll in the BME program, they will be required to do undergraduate research, etc. Everything that’s required to take the next step. It’s a slightly different focus from the other engineering programs.
Here is the curriculum for the 5th and 6th semesters (Junior year):
Term 5 Fall
BME3101 Biomedical Materials
BME3508 Biosignals and Systems
BME4311 Molecular Biomedical Engineering
BME4503 Biomedical Instrumentation
BME4503L Biomedical Instrumentation Lab
EGM2511 Engineering Mechanics: Statics
Term 6 Spring
BME3012 Clinically-Inspired Engineering Design
BME3323L Cellular Engineering Lab
BME4632 Biomedical Transport Phenomena
BME Elective
STA3032 3 Engineering Statistics
Term 7 and 8 are full of electives, senior design projects, Quantitative Physiology, etc.
https://www.bme.ufl.edu/sites/default/files/BS-BME%20plan%20of%20study%20FRESHMAN%202018-19.pdf
As you can see, it shares little with a typical MechE curriculum.
If you plan to continue your education after earning your BS, then BME is an option, otherwise it’s simply not.