<p>I'm interested to know why USC engineering as opposed to anywhere else?</p>
<p>Have you visited? Where else have you looked or plan to look? What kind of engineering interests you?</p>
<p>I didn’t get a chance to visit and im interested in Biomedical Engineering.</p>
<p>I’m interested in what about Viterbi is special to you?</p>
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UCSD, baby. There are three hubs of biotech in the US — San Diego, the Bay Area, and to an extent Boston. Of the three San Diego is at the moment the most active one, but there is a lot of VC money in biotech in the Bay Area.</p>
<p>OP, are you trying to decide whether to apply prior to December 1, without a visit? I am not a student at Viterbi (parent of current student) and am asking you these things so that maybe someone else can offer something useful to you.</p>
<p>I am already planning on applying. I was just interested in what distinguished USC.</p>
<p>Well, I can only report first hand on what happened in my DS’s case. He graduated in four years with a BS in ME and a Minor in Music Performance, and had a great time the whole way through. </p>
<p>He then worked for a year at an engineering job in LA right after graduation, a job obtained in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. As a single guy used to a student’s cost of living, he made enough in that year to pay off all his student loans and bank an impressive amount beyond that.</p>
<p>He then applied to graduate schools, and turned down fully-funded PhD programs at Princeton, UTexas and Cornell, and an unfunded offer from Stanford, to take a fully-funded program with one of his favorite professors back at USC, where he is now. Fully-funded means all school expenses paid, plus a living expenses stipend, which is common in engineering graduate study (though not at Stanford I guess). Basically it’s a job, with the compensation being the free tuition, free health insurance and the stipend.</p>
<p>So, specifically, the one student’s track record I know of is awesome. What distinguishes USC generally, I suppose, is being top-ranked engineering school, in LA – one of the coolest college locations around, with the amenities of USC, including the sports teams, great arts programs and lively social scene with nice, really attractive members of whichever gender that interests you. So, in a nutshell, world-class engineering, in LA, at USC. To me, that’s an unbeatable combination.</p>
<p>Does that help?</p>
<p>dt, that’s amazing and inspiring.</p>
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<p>UCSD is where it’s at. Unless you’re looking at JHU, UCSD comes in 2nd for Bio-Engineering. USC isn’t really known for engineering ;o</p>
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“Fully funded” PhD scholarships are the absolute norm in engineering and the sciences, with very few exceptions. The exceptions are usually offered to students who meet the academic requirements but are not within the pool of students who are offered stipends. Virtually all schools do this, but given what I said above it is economic insanity to take up a school on that offer, unless you have a sugar daddy/mommy.</p>
<p>This is not intended to minimize dt’s son’s accomplishments. Having the responsibility to work on student debt right out of school is amazing. I have a colleague who is 10 years out of grad school (where they had a scholarship), has had a great-paying job for all of these 10 years, and is still working on undergrad debt.</p>
<p>Biomedical engineering at USC is pretty competitive. Kids who were accepted to HYP, John Hopkins and are not doing so great at USC. By that I mean they don’t get straight As there. So if you think you are the kind of students who would excel at other schools then go there.</p>
<p>There are a TON of BME freshmen at USC. Because of this, I’ve been told by friends in the BME program that they tend to give freshmen the weeder classes early, to see who is actually motivated and dedicated, and who just chose that major because they didn’t know what else to pick. Also, the research you can get into as an undergrad is extremely competitive, even with reduced numbers of students in the BME program by their junior and senior years.</p>
<p>Thanks for the encouragement and optimistic outlook of my future.</p>
<p>I got your message and would send you a response, but your inbox is full. If you clear out some old PMs, I can send you my response.</p>
<p>Why so down over what some random person said over the internet? Look, if you’re passionate about BME and you are genuinely interested in the material and what it has to offer, then you will do fine. You might not get straight As, but almost nobody does in college. Honestly, what Columbia_Student said about grades has pretty much zero relevance: no engineering program worth its accreditation is going to have many straight-A students, even if they were HYP admits.</p>
<p>Alex, I did not mean to scare you but these kids did have straight As or near straight As for freshman year. This year, I’ve also heard they barely get any sleep. So if somebody said USC Biomedical Engineering is not as good as somewhere else then you need to decide for yourselves whether you are the kind of student who would get good grades somewhere else otherwise USC is pretty good program even for very smart kids, smart enough to get USC Trustee Scholarship and gotten in HYP like kind of college.</p>
<p>Viterbi does offer smaller classes, extensive alumni network, undergraduate involvement in research, flexible academic programs and opportunities. Classmates come from all over the world. Viterbi encourages combining engineering with widely divergent fields such as cinema, IR, music or even anthropology. </p>
<p>USC is one of only four universities with two National Science Foundation Research Centers.</p>
<p>Viterbi is the home of the Biomimetic Microelectronic Systems Center. The center is doing research to develop new prosthetics and systems based on fundamental principles of biology. Current projects include developing a retinal prosthetic system to provide limited vision to the blind and a neuromuscular prosthetic system to help reanimate paralyzed limbs.</p>
<p>Recent graduates have taken positions at Nike, Medtronic, Amgen, Doheny Eye Institute and Alcon Laboratories.</p>
<p>On Nov. 11th it was announced that SC had received recent government grants totaling $100 million dollars. These grants were awarded to various faculty members for research projects. One of the largest grants was to Professor Dapkus of Viterbi along with Mark Thopin of USC College to establish a 12.5 million Energy Frontier Research Center at SC.</p>
<p>Professsor Deelman of Viterbi received a large grant from the National Science Foundation of 1.6 million and Kevin Knight received 1.2 million.</p>
<p>Other grants funded are for work in plasmon resonance, plaque monitors and green nanocrystal manufacturing.</p>
<p>An Oct. 23rd article in USC News stated Viterbi Engineering had been awarded 23.6 million in stimulus grants. Some project awards are still to be announced.</p>
<p>Here are my personal reasons of choosing USC Viterbi from my other admitted schools (John Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, and UCs).
The opportunity to pursue a Business Minor along with the Engineering degree.
The opportunity to get the Bachelor and Master degree in 5 years with the Progressive Degree Program.
The opportunity to pursue medical school. A lot of Biomedical Engineering students are actually pre-med major. With pre-med under Biomedical Engineering, you will at least earn an engineering degree in case you dont get in medical schools (#1 rule in pre-med major is to have a backup plan).</p>
<p>In my opinion, Viterbi offers a lot more opportunities than just a regular bachelor of engineering degree.</p>
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<p>This maybe a reason why a lot of students in this major work very hard to get straight As.</p>
<p>Don’t let people scare you out of engineering, if you are above a reasonable threshold of intelligence the key in success in engineering is good organizational skills and hard work. i know several BMEs and none of them are going crazy competing against each other, none of them are killing themselves spending every minute studying, they, like most good engineering students, are bright people who understand when to put work ahead of other things.</p>
<p>for background most of the BMEs i know are from the honors physics class so they are probably in the upper quartile of their major on average. one thing engineers love to do more than engineering is ***** about work, i know because i am one of them. it is only as bad as you make it out to be, as long as you like your major it isn’t going to feel like an oppressive grind.</p>