Road to Biomedical Engineering

I’m currently a sophomore pursuing a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering. I plan to go on to Master’s for Biomedical Engineering for the type of career I want, which is working with artificial organs (notably permanent artificial whole-heart research).

My question is, which would prepare me more for Biomedical master’s classes: to continue in Mechanical Engineering or to switch to Chemical Engineering (keeping in mind the type of career I’m pursuing)? Since it’s only 2nd year, I haven’t taken any classes focused just for ME, so I still have time to switch without any setbacks.

Take a look at the websites of some biomedical engineering masters programs to get a sense of what pre-requisites they require. (I’m not saying you have to know where you want to go yet - just to get a sense of what they’re looking for.) It’s probably not worth switching to chem eng, though it somewhat depends on what aspects of artificial organs you might be interested in. (Mechanical design and dealing with the fluid mechanics? Dealing with chemical interactions between artificial materials and the human body?) The big thing you’ll probably need to do is make sure that you have taken the necessary biology courses. People come to biomed eng from a variety of backgrounds and undergraduate degrees (I’m doing bioengineering masters after a neuroscience bachelors), so there’s not one right path/major to take to get there.

A secondary question: what exactly do you want to do in this career? Since we’re not to the point of commercial development of permanent artificial organs, this seems like a research-oriented career. Is that what you’re looking for? If so, what draws you to doing a masters instead of a PhD? If you really want to move ahead in a research career, you will need to get a PhD.

Seconding everything that @nanotechnology said, especially the part about getting a PhD. If artificial organs is the area you’re interested in, you’ll probably be looking for a research/professorship position in academia–this simply isn’t an area well-established enough to have much, if any, representation in industry. In other words, you’ll need a PhD.

Also, biomedical engineering is a diverse field with many sub-areas that may contain aspects of numerous other fields including mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemical engineering and materials science, computer science, biology and medicine, chemistry, physics, psychology, pharmacology, and public health, to name a handful. Which direction you approach it from depends entirely on which area of BME you’d like to end up in. Look at others who are doing the type of work you’d like to do, and look at what paths they took to get there.

I chose ME first in order to get into the mechanics and design area.

Since artificial organs have a long way to go to be permanent, I’m interested in going into R&D, but not so much professorship.

I’ve always been skeptical with going for a PhD, though. I ask myself, “Would I want to go to school for that long when I could be getting experience in my career with a Master’s?” And “Is it worth the time and costs to do so?” There are many obstacles to this, most notably family and money. However, if I don’t pursue a doctorate, I may not get everything I want out of my career.

The reality is that if you want to advance in research (even if you’re talking industry R&D), you need a PhD to take on leadership roles and get promotions. I have a friend who worked for a few years in pharma before deciding to go back and get her PhD because she realized it was necessary to rise in the industry. You could get a masters and/or work for a few years, but this is the reality if you want to advance. That said, you’re also early enough on that you can keep your options open. You’re in your second year now, so get involved in research on campus and see how how it goes. Also, since you mentioned cost: in fact, it would probably cost you less to get a PhD than a masters, since a PhD would be funded (including stipend), and the chances of that for a masters are much, much lower.