BME is a stupid major

[sliceofbread136]

worst decision of my life 👎

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[theseeker4]

worst decision of my life 👎

If your ultimate goal is to gain admission to med school, and you have these stats as posted in your MDapps profile:

GPA: 3.9+
MCAT: 36+

why on earth are you complaining about your major? It obviously didn't hurt you, and if you want to be a doctor.......

 

[sliceofbread136]

If your ultimate goal is to gain admission to med school, and you have these stats as posted in your MDapps profile:

why on earth are you complaining about your major? It obviously didn't hurt you, and if you want to be a doctor.......

Too much busy workkkkkkkkk. And you don't actually learn anything in bme for all the work you do. Electrical or chemical would have been better choices by far.

 

[minerva3121]

you've already made a couple of threads complaining about BME:

Biomedical engineering at University of Texas
To all you kids wanting to do biomedical engineering | hSDN ...

Sorry you're so unhappy with your major, but constantly complaining about it on SDN isn't going to help. 🙁

 

[SnowyRox]

Newsflash: You can switch your major!

You're welcome.

 

[sliceofbread136]

you've already made a couple of threads complaining about BME:

Biomedical engineering at University of Texas
To all you kids wanting to do biomedical engineering | hSDN ...

Sorry you're so unhappy with your major, but constantly complaining about it on SDN isn't going to help. 🙁

I feel the world should know.

Newsflash: You can switch your major!

You're welcome.

If I switched I would have to take another year of college. They don't let you take any of the actual bme courses before it's too late to switch...

 

[JESSFALLING]

I'd say switch, but I agree that you might as well graduate and move on. If you weren't opposed to adding a year you could keep the major and spread the classes out.......mixing in some humanities or something. Dropping the major this far in might signal something less than ideal to an adcom....??

And, while I agree with you that BME is a 'jack-of-all-trades' major, I disagree that its breadth doesn't have value for many students. Most students don't know what they want to specialize in.........which is why graduate school exists. And, the other engineering majors will have you focused on so many non-biological components it's ridiculous.

 

[badasshairday]

I just have to ask. Did you want to go to med school since the time you started your major in BME? If so, why did you do BME and take a spot from somebody who actually wants to be an engineer? If you decided on the pre-med route after, then please disregard.

 

[plumazul]

I just have to ask. Did you want to go to med school since the time you started your major in BME? If so, why did you do BME and take a spot from somebody who actually wants to be an engineer? If you decided on the pre-med route after, then please disregard.

Not a fair question. S/he might have seen the human body as a machine and thought BME to be a relevant foundation of knowledge going into medical studies.

BTW, I my major!

 

[JESSFALLING]

Not a fair question. S/he might have seen the human body as a machine and thought BME to be a relevant foundation of knowledge going into medical studies.

Agreed. Also, engineering school is usually not impacted like, say, nursing school.......where by taking a spot you are actually displacing someone else.

BTW, I my major!

Ditto, +1 for the humanities

 

[dr zaius]

I really enjoyed BME and got tons out of it. Yea, you're not going to know thermo as well as a mechanical engineer or circuits as well as an EE, but you've got the basic skill set to move from if you're interested in a BME field related to those areas. We did a broad array of classes junior year- everything from imaging to biomechanics to tissue engineering to computer modeling- and narrowed down the courses senior year based on individual interests. I stuck with tissue engineering and felt very prepared for the pre-clinical years of medical school.

You're going to be doing "busy work" no matter what engineering degree you choose. You'll be in long labs torquing a bar until it breaks for hours. You'll have design projects that take up tons of time. Stop being a whiny bitch.

 

[circulus vitios]

At least you get to build stuff. Try being a math major.

 

[MedBound1]

I loved BME and am very glad I did it. You gain a unique engineering perspective that many others do not have when viewing and using medical devices as a physician in the future. Not to mention you have a fall-back profession if you don't end up pursuing medicine or take a few gap years to work.

But to the one poster who said don't take a spot from someone who actually wants to be an engineer is so wrong/lame. Engineering is a foundation major that can be applied to sooo many different fields, not to mention most programs do not put a cap on the class size but will take all those qualified (some do, but this is still beside the point). Of my BME class of about 50, I think only 10 or less went straight into industry as 'engineers'. We had ~8-10 go to med school, 2 go to vet school, ~8-12 more in either Pharm/PA/PT/Nursing school, and about 15 go to masters/PhD.

Biomedical engineering is also the #1 fastest growing profession in terms of demand by forbes and u.s. news.

 

[pkwraith]

BME is great. Got a great job out of it, automatically took care of premed prereqs, and made preclinical med school years a breeze.

Bad part was I couldn't party as much in undergrad. You can't have everything I guess.

 

[sliceofbread136]

I just have to ask. Did you want to go to med school since the time you started your major in BME? If so, why did you do BME and take a spot from somebody who actually wants to be an engineer? If you decided on the pre-med route after, then please disregard.

Nope, decided to go to med school like end of sophmore year. That's not rly how it works anyway.

I really enjoyed BME and got tons out of it. Yea, you're not going to know thermo as well as a mechanical engineer or circuits as well as an EE, but you've got the basic skill set to move from if you're interested in a BME field related to those areas. We did a broad array of classes junior year- everything from imaging to biomechanics to tissue engineering to computer modeling- and narrowed down the courses senior year based on individual interests. I stuck with tissue engineering and felt very prepared for the pre-clinical years of medical school.

You're going to be doing "busy work" no matter what engineering degree you choose. You'll be in long labs torquing a bar until it breaks for hours. You'll have design projects that take up tons of time. Stop being a whiny bitch.

The busy work you listed is just lab work. I've had weekly homeworks (I thought I wasn't in first grade anymore?) every week for the past 1.5 years where all you do is useless matlab crap for 10 hours like graph and then add up harmonics like 8 different times.... YES I GET WHAT A ****ING FOUIER SERIES IS I DONT HAVE TO ADD UP THESE HARMONICS. And I was raised to be a whiny bitch, take it up with my parents.

I loved BME and am very glad I did it. You gain a unique engineering perspective that many others do not have when viewing and using medical devices as a physician in the future. Not to mention you have a fall-back profession if you don't end up pursuing medicine or take a few gap years to work.

But to the one poster who said don't take a spot from someone who actually wants to be an engineer is so wrong/lame. Engineering is a foundation major that can be applied to sooo many different fields, not to mention most programs do not put a cap on the class size but will take all those qualified (some do, but this is still beside the point). Of my BME class of about 50, I think only 10 or less went straight into industry as 'engineers'. We had ~8-10 go to med school, 2 go to vet school, ~8-12 more in either Pharm/PA/PT/Nursing school, and about 15 go to masters/PhD.

Biomedical engineering is also the #1 fastest growing profession in terms of demand by forbes and u.s. news.

The thing is that biomedical engineering companies don't actually want biomedical engineers. They want the other engineering types with biological knowledge, the ones who actually know stuff. So while the field is growing, they aren't actually many good job opportunities. That's why so many people just go into completely different fields, like being a vet.

 

[MedBound1]

The thing is that biomedical engineering companies don't actually want biomedical engineers. They want the other engineering types with biological knowledge, the ones who actually know stuff. So while the field is growing, they aren't actually many good job opportunities. That's why so many people just go into completely different fields, like being a vet.

Umm... I currently work for one of the largest ones in the U.S. and over 50% of our R&D department (and 75%+ of those under 30, because BME is relatively new major) hold BME undergraduate majors. Your whole argument is conjecture of what you think the industry is like, and people on here that have actually worked in it are trying to tell you otherwise.

edit: The argument you present is one that is about 5 years old, when BME was first being born companies didn't understand exactly what people in BME majors were being taught, so they preferred mechanical/chemical etc. That is changing at an incredibly fast rate.

 

[sliceofbread136]

Umm... I currently work for one of the largest ones in the U.S. and over 50% of our R&D department (and 75%+ of those under 30, because BME is relatively new major) hold BME undergraduate majors. Your whole argument is conjecture of what you think the industry is like, and people on here that have actually worked in it are trying to tell you otherwise.

And other people going into industry from my school have also told me otherwise, so I guess what you say is a conjecture as well. A possible confounding variable is that my school's BME department is total and complete garbage, while our other engineering schools are pretty decent.

 

[MedBound1]

And other people going into industry from my school have also told me otherwise, so I guess what you say is a conjecture as well. A possible confounding variable is that my school's BME department is total and complete garbage, while our other engineering schools are pretty decent.

con·jec·ture: the formation or expression of an opinion or theory without sufficient evidence for proof.

I work for a global medical device company with 20,000+ employees. Of the engineers under 30 in research and development, 75%+ of them have BME degrees. This is not theoretical or opinion, it is the current reality at my company.

 

[dr zaius]

Where do you go to school? Rice has an excellent program and UT Austin wasn't too bad either if I remember correctly.

I had plenty of job offers when I graduated, and many of my classmates found work without issue. A lot of it has to do with how much experiential learning you get during school (lab work, co-ops, etc).

 

[sliceofbread136]

con·jec·ture: the formation or expression of an opinion or theory without sufficient evidence for proof.

I work for a global medical device company with 20,000+ employees. Of the engineers under 30 in research and development, 75%+ of them have BME degrees. This is not theoretical or opinion, it is the current reality at my company.

Well in my current reality, no one I know with a BME degree is getting a job, so I guess neither of us are making a conjecture? Or both us? I dont know..... all I know is that no one in BME from my school gets a job, and if they do it pays like 40k a year.

 

[MedBound1]

Well in my current reality, no one I know with a BME degree is getting a job, so I guess neither of us are making a conjecture? Or both us? I dont know..... all I know is that no one in BME from my school gets a job, and if they do it pays like 40k a year.

I'm not trying to argue with you about it.. It's pretty obvious though how you step on some people's toes when you title a thread "BME is a stupid major" and just say "Worst decision of my life 👎". And there are plenty of people who loved BME and do not observe any of those same things about the industry regarding availability, pay, etc. The job market is pretty terrible out there for everyone right now, it may just be that all the people you talk to about it are BME.

 

[tenndoc]

glad i abandoned it for biochem. matlab can kiss the fattest, whitest part of my ass

 

[sliceofbread136]

I'm not trying to argue with you about it.. It's pretty obvious though how you step on some people's toes when you title a thread "BME is a stupid major" and just say "Worst decision of my life 👎". And there are plenty of people who loved BME and do not observe any of those same things about the industry regarding availability, pay, etc.

The purpose of the thread was for me to complain. If you had a good experience with BME, then good for you and best of luck. Didn't mean to offend.

 

[MedBound1]

glad i abandoned it for biochem. matlab can kiss the fattest, whitest part of my ass

Our BME class size shrank about 40% from sophomore year to graduation.. Mostly because there were a lot of people in it that were more interested in sciences than engineering (to the point where they thought the major would be dominantly pre-med oriented), and we still take all the thermo, solids, dynamics, etc.

One of my friends that switched from BME to biochem junior year said the exact same thing you just did there.

 

[MedBound1]

The purpose of the thread was for me to complain. If you had a good experience with BME, then good for you and best of luck. Didn't mean to offend.

Complain to your department to change the cirriculum, networking, opportunities etc. to help out future grads from your school instead of SDN 🙂

 

[sliceofbread136]

Complain to your department to change the cirriculum, networking, opportunities etc. to help out future grads from your school instead of SDN 🙂

Already done many many times. They don't care.

 

[dr zaius]

glad i abandoned it for biochem. matlab can kiss the fattest, whitest part of my ass

I loved matlab 😳

 

[VisionaryTics]

Keep up the whining, OP. Great life skill to have.

At least you won't be swamped with pointless busywork in med school (PBL and scut), residency (scut and forms), and clinical practice (forms, forms, forms).

👍👍

 

[sliceofbread136]

Keep up the whining, OP. Great life skill to have.

At least you won't be swamped with pointless busywork in med school (PBL and scut), residency (scut and forms), and clinical practice (forms, forms, forms).

👍👍

Thanks man, glad to have your support.

I'll fill out form all day if it means I can escape 20 hour of pointless matlab a week.

I'll be honest, I think med school is going to really relaxing compared to this bull****. I hear stories from med students on this board how they get up, don't go to class, study 4 hours a day and then have the rest of the day to themselves. That sounds like HEAVEN.

 

[sliceofbread136]

I loved matlab 😳

Matlab itself isn't bad, it is rly user friendly compared to things like C. But it is just used as an avenue for busy work, which is why it invokes my ire.

 

[TheWeeIceMan]

Matlab itself isn't bad, it is rly user friendly compared to things like C. But it is just used as an avenue for busy work, which is why it invokes my ire.

Speaking as a BME grad, C was one of the worst experiences of undergrad for me. Do.Not.Want.

 

[Psai]

Keep up the whining, OP. Great life skill to have.

At least you won't be swamped with pointless busywork in med school (PBL and scut), residency (scut and forms), and clinical practice (forms, forms, forms).

👍👍

haha called out

 

[Lawpy]

Keep up the whining, OP. Great life skill to have.

At least you won't be swamped with pointless busywork in med school (PBL and scut), residency (scut and forms), and clinical practice (forms, forms, forms).

👍👍

haha called out

So I'm not sure why this thread got bumped, but it looks like OP continued the trend in allo forums here.

 

[wholeheartedly]

closing. off topic.