<p>I’m a senior BME major.
- One of the major advantages to Hopkins is the lack of a core curriculum. This means that while you have to take X credits of humanities and social science courses, they can be in whatever area you want. Personally, I’ve used my distribution requirements to do a second major in Economics; other people have used them to focus on area such as English, Spanish, Public Health, Philosophy etc, and some people choose to take a broad assortment of courses. The only concern that you may have is that the arts and music courses offered on campus do not actually count as distribution requirements (they have no area designation). So while you can still take these classes to fill your open electives, they won’t count towards the distribution requirements. Also, another useful opportunity if you’re interested in art and music - it’s possible to take courses at the Peabody Conservatory (which is part of Hopkins) and at MICA (the Maryland Institute College of Art, which is part of the Baltimore Collegetown Network).</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Foreign language courses count towards the distribution requirements as well, and taking those is easy and quite common. I personally took a year of French my freshman year after taking 4 years in high school. As for study abroad, it is admittedly more difficult to study abroad during the year as an engineering, and specifically as a BME major because of the major requirements and ABET accreditation rules. From what I understand, you’re pretty much restricted to studying abroad in English speaking countries if you want to take engineering courses; you can, however, do a semester abroad where you focus on your humanities courses and that should be quite easily doable if you plan far enough in advance. There are lots of opportunities to study abroad during the summers. The School of Engineering has a program called the Vredenburg scholarship, which funds engineers who want to do research or take courses abroad. I’ve known people who have gone to Germany, Spain, China, Australia, etc. Quite a few people that I know have take advantage of this program, or other opportunities to work abroad over the summer.</p></li>
<li><p>Even though the BME program is quite involved, I find that BMEs are some of the most involved students on campus. Personally, I am a member of the campus EMS service, co-Secretary General of our Model UN Conference, officer of the Biomedical Engineering Society chapter and I also volunteer with the admissions office. There are, of course, some BME’s who spend lots of time in the library, but you’ll see that at every school and with every major. I think BME students achieve a good balance schoolwork and fun. As for sleep, there are definitely long, sleepless nights before exams etc, but I don’t think the workload prevents you from getting involved in activities that you’re really interested in.</p></li>
<li><p>I personally think that BME is quite the opposite of competitive. Most people realized that if you try to be competitive and do everything by yourself, it’s going to be hard to pass. As one of my friends put it, “you can’t be a BME alone.” Almost everyone works together with other people on problem sets and when studying for tests. I’ve had problem sets before where I have no idea where to start and have to sit in a group and discuss the problem for an hour before someone comes up with an idea that works. When I study, it tends to be with 3-4 other people. and we’re connected to other study groups via AIM and GChat, so if there’s any confusion, there are 20-30 other people I can consult within a few seconds.</p></li>
<li><p>While a lot of BMEs come in thinking they want to go to medical school, by graduation, I think the division is 1/3 medical school, 1/3 graduate school and 1/3 industry (real jobs). It’s not that people can’t get into medical school, it’s that a lot of people realize that they really want to do research or get a job in device development or patent law or whatever.</p></li>
<li><p>BME is a real, fully accredited engineering major, so there is a lot of math involved. Beyond just the math courses that you take, all the physiology courses that you take will approach the body from a very quantitative, mathematical perspective. Before you commit to BME, make sure that this is really what you’re interested in studying. I think the majority of people who transfer out of BME do so because they didn’t realize the math-intesiveness of the program coming in. If you’re not interested in math, they maybe Biology or Neuroscience might be better programs</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Overall, if your interests lie in hard-core science and possibly research, I would narrow down your choices to Rice or Hopkins (of the schools you listed). I don’t think you can go wrong between those two schools. As far as research, the opportunities at both places are outstanding. I think Rice is one of the few places that can compete with Hopkins in terms of research opportunities. Having spent four years in a lab at Hopkins, and three summers in labs in the Texas Medical Center (the massive area across Main street from Rice), I know that you’ll find something you’re really interested in both places. If you’re really interested in BME, I personally think that the program at Hopkins is better because of the way the program here gets you involved in BME your freshman year (instead of just taking intro math and science courses). I also have found it amazing that (more than a couple times), we have been taught different areas of physiology by the very people who made the discoveries that are in our textbooks. I think Hopkins’ BME faculty members are among the world leaders in their respective fields and that brings a very unique dimension to our courses. Instead of having one professor teach our main physiology courses (the Systems Bioengineering courses) as I believe Rice does, we have the people who are the experts in each field/topic come lecture on that section of the course. </p>
<p>Ultimately, I would recommend you visit both campuses and see where you feel more comfortable. Evaluate whether you’re sure you want to do BME, and if so, think about which program you would like better (I know I’m a bit biased in my assessment).</p>
I will probably visit both campuses in the next few weeks.</p>