Hi all, I am in my 3rd year at UC Davis, biomedical engineering. I have been reading some negative reviews about the bme program, and am getting increasingly worried. I would like to work in industry after I graduate, so I can begin paying back my student loans, however the salaries for the jobs I can apply for are all either unlisted or very low (like hourly wage low). I am not an incredibly outstanding student (~3.0 gpa, minor experience).
Does anyone have any advice, or input on how I may do after graduating with a BME degree? Most helpful is if some recent grads could post their personal experiences with getting jobs and what not. It’d be greatly appreciated, thanks!
The best thing that you can do is get experience ASAP. My biggest pet peeve of college students today is that they think a job is going to be handed to them because they had a pretty good GPA. I’ve personally hired students at my firm who had 3.5 GPA’s compared to some of those who interviewed with a 4.0. Why did I hire them? Because they had the relevant experience that meant they could enter the industry seamlessly.
So what should you do? Become relevant. Actively talk to your professors. They have a great view/connections to the industry and can also recommend you later down the road. Some of them might be able to assign you on projects/research which will beef up your resume quite a bit. Join some clubs that are related to your major (those clubs are there for a reason).
And the most important step: GET AN INTERNSHIP. Ask yourself what makes you stand apart from your classmates and if you can’t honestly think of anything, then why would an employer differentiate you from the applicant pool? You could be interning at the smallest company and be unpaid, but it will make a world of difference when it comes to a career.
According to my dd, who transferred out of BME in her sophomore year, she also was concerned that there were no jobs. She found out the the industry is in its infancy and the market is just developing. She also had a number of loans that she needed to pay, so she transferred into EE.
I agree with midnight golfer^^^^. You need to get an internship at a bio lab.
My son (3rd yr Gatech), transferred out of BME to EE at the end of 1st year. But if you like BME, then get an internship in the field. Being in bay area, there are lots of companies in South SF and also in South Bay. Even if it means taking a semester off to do some real work at one of these companies.
Disclaimer: I am not an engineer, nor am I the parent of an aspiring engineer.
FWIW, I had an interesting conversation some time ago with an aspiring biomedical engineer. She thought that it was sensible to first get a degree in some other area (she chose Chemical Engineering) and then to do graduate work in biomedical engineering, reasoning that if she didn’t like grad school or didn’t find a job in biomedical engineering she could fall back on a $100k job related to her major. Also, FWIW, an older friend of my daughter did concentrate on biomedical engineering, but did no seek a job and went instead to a graduate program. My nephew, though is a sophomore EE major–he wants a job after four years of study.