What Should I Major In to Work in Biomedical?

I’m in a pitted battle with myself lately. I can’t decide on my major. The two major contenders here for me are Mechanical or comp sci. My reasoning for considering an engineering type field is because I like how diverse the curriculum tends to be, and how engineering (from what i’ve heard) tends to open a wide range or opportunities in different fields.

Biomedical engineering seems interesting to me. My question is, which branch of engineering do I pick to have this career as an option? I’ve heard some bad things about biomedical majors. I’d be open to going into mechanical if it proved more valuable in the end.

Another issue I have is that as far as engineering goes I don’t really have much interest in other engineering applications aside from those used in medical devices or medical research. I’ve never been interested in cars, trucks, skyscrapers, bridges, motherboards etc… But prosthetic limbs, mechanical hearts, hearing devices, etc… Things that can help people interest me enough that I could probably see myself devoting time into learning and understanding.

I enjoy math, computers, AND physical things… That’s what’s killing me. On one hand i’m thinking maybe ME or EE would be good because i’ll still learn some programming and could always teach myself more comp sci later. Then my other thought is “what if that’s a horrible idea and I should just do comp sci…?”.

If you love coding and only coding, choose CS. Otherwise I wouldn’t.

You can work in the biomedical field with any engineering degree. Most people who work in biomedical engineering got their undergrad degrees in CS, MechE, EE, ChemE, or biology. If you’re most interested in CS, major in CS and look into opportunities in computational biology or medical devices.

Theoretically, you can choose any STEM major for undergrad. If you choose to attend grad school for BME, you may need to do some remedial coursework if you are lacking in one of life sciences or engineering background. Most BME grad students will have done their undergrad in a more traditional engineering discipline (ME, EE, and ChemE). Some will have done it in BME - most people doing BME undergrad are those wanting to go to medical or some other type of health professions school, rather than become an actual engineer. BME undergrad programs tend to focus more on breadth than depth. A more traditional engineering discipline gives you a more in depth background, and also gives you the option to go for other industries in the event that you become interested in something else.

I don’t see a lot of CS students going into BME, but it is still possible. Many BME grad programs have concentrations (such as imaging, biomechanics, etc.), and I do not know of any that have a CS focused concentration (the closest I have seen is probably imaging), though this is not to say that they do not exist. CS is more than just programming - there is a theory side and a hardware side to it. If you enjoy CS enough to do the major, by all means go for it, otherwise just take additional programming coursework while doing another major.