<p>It is very true that engineering disciplines are merging. Plus each field had been advancing over the past two decades, resulting in lots of knowledge that a student must absorb, even just for that single field. At the schools that offer BME, if you look at the curricula it is actually a mishmash of various engineering disciplines collected together to serve medical purposes. So a bit of EE, a bit of ME, a bit of materials e, plus biology. And I would say that probably an undergrad degree alone does not really qualify you to fly solo for a solid career (though I could easily be wrong here) like engineering used to be. I suspect a masters is a necessary condition going forward. That is why you still don't see Stanford offering BioE as a separate major for undergrads.</p>
<p>My D is actually much more a bio science kid than an engineering kid, even though she is tops in math and physics. In her own words it's a question of passion. That said, her competence in the hard sciences and math makes her a good candidate for BioE. We encouraged her to explore this field for the fresh possibilities, and told her it is ok if she decides to focus on, say, neuroscience, after all. Hence the long list of possible interest areas.</p>
<p>When we spoke with the professor (a dynamite) at MIT who really coalesced the curricula there for BioE, she told us that MIT considers biology to be a field whose techniques and technologies have matured sufficiently to be treated as an engineering discipline. Hence if you look at their courses, the titles all begin with "bio..." e.g. biomaterials, biomechanics, etc. I believe this approach at the undergrad level is new, possibly revolutionary. So they don't call their offerings BME but rather BioE, with an intentional difference. Deserving of its reputation, MIT is bold and sophisticated in its thinking about how it tackles engineering frontiers. This session with the professor so inspired my child that she picked MIT as her top choice (do you hear some resigned fatalism in my voice?) She does not have to make a choice between biology and bioE, because at MIT BioE IS Biology. How about that?!</p>
<p>The truth is that most exciting engineering jobs in the future will require a deep knowledge in one area, but also reasonable acquaintance with at least one other discipline. My H was a physics major at Berkeley, and later moved to CS/EE. He spent most of his career doing software, but never far from handling circuit boards and wires in the labs, the "beasts" that his software had to manipulate. His knowledge from physics helped him navigate the hardware world, something that was unusual in his day for "softies." The future engineer must be able to cross over more easily, because the applications will require that: witness nanotechnology. Btw, THAT is a field where an undergrad major truly makes no sense!</p>
<p>So, a long post later, I would say that my hats off to the new engineering majors. Theirs are much tougher roads than we ever had to traverse!</p>
<p>And thanks to Redcrimblue with the lists, my mind is much clearer now about the opportunities and the relative tradeoffs among my D's choices.</p>