Future BmE/BE student looking for insight

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>I'm dead set to become an bioengineering student. Im not worried about the jobs, or the pay, but rather, the "bioegineering" major itself. I'm basically looking for support, and insight into BE from past/future/grad/current/whatever BE students! I'm definitly going to take my future BS [haha...] into grad school. My father, suggested patent law, but I consider myself weak in writing, but its definitly a possiblity. I've considered getting an PhD; the reasoning is that I wouldnt be content with a technician job or anything related to that in BE. I somewhat interested in research, but I think I want to be involved with the developing/designing side. But, If I could get an MBA....</p>

<p>There really isnt any question that i have. I think im just looking for support going into this field. I've heard a lot of bad stuff ranging from bad<em>lowdemand for jobs/pay/ technicians</em>researchers_only/ but that hasn't really deturred me from applying to schools in this field.</p>

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<p>What schools are you looking at?</p>

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<p>what is meant by a technician vs a staff engineer?</p>

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<p>The long and short of the difference is that as a "staff engineer" you get to use your brain - and the material from many of the crazy engineering courses you take - a lot more than you do as a technician, where you are mostly doing skilled but often boring and repetitive labor. Ex: at Genentech, manufacturing technicians check up on the machines (bioreactors) and mix together growth media for culturing cells; research technicians work under lab managers or scientists, gathering data for studies. Staff engineers are on the design end: they develop the plans for the bioreactors and/or the means to build them. </p>

<p>A lot of the higher end "staff engineer" jobs go to people with PhDs - probably the highest paying being the process engineering jobs that go to chemical engineering PhDs.</p>