Getting into BME with only a B.S. ME background...

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>Howdy All,</p>

<p>I just registered with the site today and I come to you all to pick your brains on an advisable course of action. I'm currently going into my senior year at Lafayette studying mechanical engineering with a minor in biotechnology. My true interests lie in biomedical engineering but that wasn't really an option for me. The mechanical side of things seemed much more interesting to me than did the ECE and ChemE. My biomedical course load thusfar has been rather weak due more to the offerings than to a lack of ambition. So far I have a 3.76 cumulative GPA that I'm hoping I can maintain these last two semesters. I have also secured an internship for this summer at a medical device start-up so I've been getting a lot of great experience from that.</p>

<p>So I've been thinking a lot about what it is that I want to do, and I can't help but feel that I need further education in BME in order to secure a good job in the biomedical engineering field. I've been looking into a M.S. BME from some of the big schools in biomedical engineering (JHU, Duke, etc...) and I've really liked some of the different programs that each has. As a result of my reading I've narrowed my potential career path down to three things:</p>

<p>1)New product design and development in the biomedical field</p>

<p>2)A more business/management oriented career in the same area as above</p>

<p>3)Law school after completing an M.S. BME, focusing on Intelectual Property and becoming a patent attorney</p>

<p>I probably am asking (or trying to) a billion questions in one post, but what are your guys takes on me pursuing a Masters of Science/Engineering in biomedical engineering to each of these ends? And in general do you have any opinions on any of them in particular?</p>

<p>The third one, patent law, never seemed appealing until I started working at this start-up, where so many factors are taken into consideration that I had no idea about! Intellectual property, the competitive nature of being on the cutting edge of new technology all seem rather interesting. I'm just concerned that if I were to decide on this path, would I require more education on the biomedical field?</p>

<p>:|</p>

<p>Sorry for the massive first post! But if you can please just post whatever comes to mind in regards to the field, or any of my questions/discussion points, I would be eternally grateful.</p>

<p>Thanks,</p>

<p>SG</p>

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<p>You may want to ask around at your internship company about whether doing a master’s in BME would be significantly helpful over your bachelor’s in ME with some additional biotechnology courses (considering the cost and time involved), for any of your three possible career goals.</p>

<p>For example, if your interest is in designing assistive and prosthetic devices and the like, then ME is very good background to have.</p>

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<p>You may be shocked (and somewhat scared) to know that nobody at my company has a degree in BME! In fact, I may have taken more courses on it (<5) than they have… It is a very small company with few staff and even fewer engineers…The only trained engineer is a mechanical engineer with just a B.S., and he does all of the design work. I’ve spoken with him about it before, and he has only ever worked on medical devices that were very mechanical in nature and did not require extensive biomedical knowledge. In short, he has said he doesn’t know that much about BME degrees, but has also said that he’s managed to do okay without it. My impression from talking to him is that an ME is limited in certain aspects as to what he can design, model, analyze, etc…by his understanding of the human body.</p>