<p>I am having a hard time discerning the true quality of BME department at WashU.</p>
<p>Most people say it is a very strong not because of the department itself, but because they associate its quality based on WashU's medical school, which is ranked 3rd in the country.
I believe BME department has a strong relationship with WashU's medical school but they are in the end two separate entities/schools.</p>
<p>Very recently, BME was ranked 10th in the country by USNews, up from 17th in 2008.
I've browsed through the BME website and each professors research fields, and maybe it was the poor information layout, but I could not find anything pertinent that makes WashU outstanding.</p>
<p>I know of one BME senior who will be graduating in May, and he has not been able to find a job or get into a good caliber grad school. It worries that the BME department is hyped up. </p>
<p>I would appreciate if any BME student or anyone who has more acquaintance with BME department than me give some feedback. </p>
<p>I think it depends on what you think makes a department outstanding. Is it the quality of the teaching, the variety of courses, the research opportunities, or the placement rate into top positions and schools?</p>
<p>I’m a washu bme alum… I won’t say much about the coursework, because the department has been growing, and there are a lot more offerings now. I will say, however, that being at a university with such an outstanding medical school does provide many opportunities for research as an undergrad. This is extremely valuable in the job search, grad school application process, etc etc. I worked in 3 labs while I was at WashU - all associated with the BME department in some way, but none run by BME faculty and so not detailed on the website.
I also believe in the quality of the teaching in the department. There are always exceptions (see the tread about BME140…) but I had many professors really committed to helping students learn.</p>
<p>I personally chose to go to grad school for my MS (top 10 dept). In my opinion, for BME, getting the additional experience of grad school is absolutely necessary, regardless of where you went for undergrad. I found that lots of my BME friends also continued to grad school, but everyone else was able to find jobs. Hopefully the recruiting at WashU has also improved, but it’s always harder being in St. Louis, since there isn’t much of a biomedical industry there.</p>
<p>To me, the most important factors were things that would help me get a good job or into grad school - accessibility to research in my areas of interest, and variety of coursework.</p>
<p>Thanks for your input.
I’ll define “outstanding” by the teaching quality, courses, student body and of course research resources. Rankings tend to integrate all of these factors together, so I think they are all inter-related. It’s ranked #10, so there must be areas that make WashU out stand others. I know, research is definitely one of those areas.</p>
<p>Although research is indeed very important, I think at the undergraduate level, students should concentrate more on acquiring fundamental knowledge.</p>
<p>This brings the question of student body. At WashU, is the student body motivated enough to pursue course content further than what the professor teaches during lectures? Not only through research but also engage with professors during office hours…etc
As for teaching quality, I think it is intimately in rapport with the student body. If students are engaged, professors are also motivated and committed to delivers their knowledge. It’s very common that students are unmotivated to learn and subsequently professors just do their bare minimum too.
All in all, for me, the student body is the important factor.
I hope students at BME WashU have a genuine interest in BME; and they learn for the sake of acquiring knowledge and not for the sake of just passing a test.</p>
<p>Everyone at WashU will be brilliant and will want to learn more. I think you should just be concerned with how motivated you are instead of hoping that everyone else in your BME intro class is as motivated as you are. What would happen if 100 kids decided to go in during office hours to engage with the professor? What if those 100 kids asked that same professor for research? Most likely you’ll end up with nothing. Some BME students will prefer to socialize, some will prefer research, some will prefer talking to a professor. Everyone will take their courses seriously, but don’t be so concerned with having a class where everyone wants to be the teacher’s pet and the perfect student. You won’t even find a class like that at Harvard.</p>
<p>Yeah, kind of cutting through all of this, I think your original question was a lilttle misguided. I hope that doesn’t sound harsh, I don’t mean for it to. It is so common for incoming freshmen to worry about this sort of thing, but the reality is so different than what you expect. Rankings and all that stuff…just throw it out of your mind, seriously. Citing one BME senior, well I think you know how anecdotal that is. It might reflect far more on the student than Wash U, and this isn’t exactly the best economy for a job. It just isn’t something you should put much weight on.</p>
<p>You know that the Wash U is an excellent program. Also, you are very busy in you undergrad years taking lots of courses outside of your major (as many as 75% in some cases) and getting the fundamentals, which you very correctly pointed out yourself. If you do research that is a wonderful bonus, but don’t blow it up into something more than it is. In grad school your research is primary, as an undergrad it is decidely secondary. Potentially gratifying and important, but secondary.</p>
<p>At Wash U the profs are generally highly accessable, very capable, and your fellow students bright, motivated and actually helpful to each other. To me, that represents outstanding. Now you have to decide if you have the same definition.</p>