<p>A while back (like last year) I vaguely remember reading that UC Berkeley's bioengineering program is not accredited. Is this true, and what do you suggest if I'm interested in the field? </p>
<p>I'm interested in computational bioengineering. </p>
<p>I’m a 2nd year BioE at Berkeley. Accreditation doesn’t mean anything for bioengineering. It’s such a new concept to engineer biology or apply engineering principles to biology (big difference actually). Bioengineering is a very research oriented major and is nothing like Mechanical or Civil Engineering where Professional Engineering certificates are given for those fields. Thus, I would look at the research of what is being done in bioengineering instead of worrying about accreditation. Read abstracts and see what interests you. There are lots of things to do with bioengineering and, again, it’s a hot field. Hope thishelped 
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<p>@Dubblebubble898:
Thanks for your insights. My S accepted to BioEng at Berkeley. He wants to pursue a research oriented track leading to an MD/Ph.D. How good is the premed option under BioEng? Very popular option? Do BioEng students have access to do clinical research at UCSF as undergrads. What differentiates Cal BioEng vs UCSD BioEng, both highly rated, for undergrads? </p>
<p>MD/PhD is hard wherever you study, just be warned. That would be quite ambitious of them but not impossible. The premed option is better in bioe vs MCB in general as the average gap for bioE upper divs is around a 3.3-5, which is quite high. But of course, this is partly due to the CoE admissions is harder than L&S and if you don’t like math, then BioE will get hard.<br>
There are so many opportunities to do research here but they are not given to you. You have to work for a position (it’s like a job, so it builds professional skills). I work for a BioE professor and at LBNL (Berkeley’s national lab) both in bio related work. There’s JBEI, EBI, JGI, LBNL, Berkeley’s departmental labs, and several big (Bayer, Novartis, Genentech, Stryker to name a few) and small industries that are near Berkeley that they work at. UCSF is definitely an option for doing work (I know several friends working there now) and the BioE department makes it a bit easier to get connections for UCSF as Berkeley’s Grad program is joint UC Berkeley and Ucsf. I don’t know much about ucsd though. What I can say is that since Berkeley is so heavily invested and known not only for biology but for chemistry, physics, and the other engineering disciplines unlike UCSD, students can explore more into these other fields and learn from these great departments. Will you guys be coming for cal day? I’m volunteering for the bioe department that day!</p>
<p>When is cal day?</p>
<p>12 th april</p>