<p>what are the job prospects for a biomedical engineering from cal poly?</p>
<p>i'm wondering about this too. this major is so much talked about but i really don't have a solid idea of what kind of classes you take and what kind of jobs/ professions would be open to you with an undergrad/ graduate degree in BME.</p>
<p>BME job prospects depend greatly on your drive and inventiveness on making yourself marketable. I've known BMEs that have worked for NASA on manned space flight monitoring and designed Space Station medical bay equipment at Houston, designed flight experiments at Kennedy, worked with prosthetics on their own start-up company, went to medical school, and worked for major medical device manufacturers. Each of these options uses experience gained from different classes and from internships and summer jobs that are in some way applicable to the desired position.</p>
<p>I have worked in the medical device industry for over 10 years and have held positions from software verification/test, low-level device/system interface design engineer, systems design engineer, clinical trial leader, and field clinical trial engineer.</p>
<p>My job experience working with writing software got me in the door at this medical device manufacturer. My drive and talent took me into other areas that interested me. You have to be able to sell yourself and the talents you bring to the table to land any job, but most especially an undergraduate degree like BME.</p>
<p>You DID know that selling is a part of engineering, didn't you? :-)</p>
<p>haha yeah, I knew just that little bit and that's probably why I was kind of scared(?)/ worried about it as much as I'm interested in the field. It is uncertain. Nothnig is guaranteed. I feel like I might be thinking of it as what I want it to be, not actually knowing what it is. Plus, so many people around me are saying WHAT are you going to do with that degree. Sometime I feel like they are asking too much from me right now. I don't have all the answers either. On the other hand, they have their reasons to be worried: I mean these days college tuitions are not that affordable to be easily tossed off and be forgotten when you're still trying to find a job five years after graduation. I don't know, maybe I'm just having a moment of doubts. I'm tired of making all the big decisions during senior year of HS. Anyway, thanks very much for your reply, Scrubs! :)</p>
<p>Not to hijack this thread, but I've heard a lot about how someone with a bs in a traditional engineering discipline is more likely to get a job in biotech than a bs in bioengineering, for various reasons. But I guess my question is if someone with a bs in bioengineering (from UCSD, specifically) couldn't find a job in biotech, could they potentially find one just in bio?</p>
<p>Uh.. engineering is professional. Professional=make at least 60 k starting out.</p>
<p>MrRabbit, one of the neat things about a BME degree is that in many cases you can define what you can do with the degree. I truthfully didn't know what I was going to do with my undergrad BME degree, but I got busy and contacted nearly every medical device manufacturer in MN (via the Medical Alley Directory) and got a slew of interviews with companies. I didn't land a position right away (GPA was good, but not stellar) so after working in Quality Control of a non-medical manufacturing firm for about a year, I went back for a MS in BME. I had some job offers with my undergrad degree, but I didn't think that they would pan out to very much (little to no upward mobility in a non-startup company), so I didn't think that they were worth pursuing.</p>
<p>At the time, I thought I was behind the curve, experience-wise, but now I have others from my alma mater (graduating class friends, too) contacting ME as someone to get THEM a job. The upshot is that by carefully choosing your degree path and the right school, you can have a very flexible degree that you can parlay into a job you want with the right selling skills. BME is a little more difficult to explain to someone not familiar with the degree so you have to be able to detail what skills you bring to the table. If you can do that, you'll not be disappointed in your degree nor with your job prospects. </p>
<p>It's only the first job in your major that's difficult to obtain, the rest of them come naturally from what you have accomplished while working.</p>
<p>Going only for the $$ is a sure way to be disappointed. A big company may offer you quite a lot to take a position, only for you to find out that you hate it or you'll have to claw your way up a long corporate ladder to get out of that particular entry-level job. If you're a risk-taker, getting into a smaller company like a start-up with 10 people won't pay a lot in the first few years, but could offer a lot of payoff if the product takes off or if it gets bought out by a larger company. Of course it could also fail, hence the risk in taking the job. </p>
<p>Looking for only the dollar signs is not the way to go. Evaluate the job and the opportunity, not just the compensation.</p>