biomedical engineering: saving lives one calculation at a time.
filed under: inquiry ii: how do we learn?
have you ever been to the hospital and had surgery, seen someone or know someone with a prosthetic, used AI, or have an Apple Watch?
welcome to biomedical engineering.
the ultimate stem field: a combination of math, physics, chemistry, biology and engineering to change healthcare one innovation at a time. where cutting-edge tech meets the human body. innovation, impact, the future of healthcare - and we are the ones who are building it.
as a biomedical engineering student, i love getting to talk about my field of study and all the applications! so let’s get into it.
so what exactly is biomedical engineering?
biomedical engineering (bme) is the intersection of engineering and medicine, where biology, medicine and engineering are combined to solve problems in healthcare. the field includes designing prosthetics and implants, medical devices and imaging systems, engineering tissues and organs, stem cell therapies, and software for diagnostic tools or wearable devices. we also do work within optimization in hospitals or the healthcare system in general.
our goal as biomedical engineers is to improve patient care and the healthcare system by integrating engineering solutions into our current and future structures. we work with other biomedical engineers, but also other types of engineers, such as mechanical, electrical, chemical, software, and even civil. we also work closely with doctors and other healthcare professionals.
our work is meaningful and impactful - you get to see how the innovations you work on can help change someone's life, or even save someone's life. and the field is only growing, with new innovations in health and biotech every day.
bme is very interdisciplinary, and that means mastering not only engineering principals, but also biology and anatomy, and how to combine all these skillsets together. before i get into this, its good to mention that biomedical engineering is considered one of the hardest majors. with many complex and technical subjects to master combined with the lives of humans in your hands, it makes this degree arguably one of the hardest engineering disciplines.
first year: you will most likely begin your 4-5 year engineering degree with a common year: this is what every single engineering student, regardless of discipline, starts their engineering degree with.
you will take introductory classes in subjects like calculus, physics, circuits, statics, materials, fluids, linear algebra and coding. it's notorious to be difficult - like any engineering degree - but once you make it, you've made it. the first year is designed to "weed out" students who aren't the right fit for engineering, which can make it brutal, but also help you learn if it's the right degree for you as it only really gets harder from there.
second year: you will most likely start learning more courses specific to bme. it's still skill-based: you will be taking engineering calc II and III, along with more physics, circuits, coding etc, but you will also take courses like biomedical instrumentation, signals and systems, solid and fluid mechanics, dynamics, biomedical engineering systems, thermodynamics, statics and machine learning, and anatomy, physiology and biology.
i personally found my second year to be more difficult than i anticipated - essentially, you need to take crash courses in every type of engineering all in two semesters, plus biomedical applications. for example, mechanical engineers typically take solid mech first semester of second year and fluid mech second semester, with these courses being pretty difficult. for us, we took both courses combined in one in one semester, with two profs, two final exams, two labs, two final projects, etc. all combined in one course. for another course that semester, after talking to our dean, we found out was three courses combined in one, one of them being thermodynamics.
and in that same semester, we had anatomy and physiology, all combined in one course (which, you guessed it, was extremely condensed). and remember, your also taking, alongside those three difficult courses, a single course covering all the electrical engineering principals, and another for dynamics, etc. you get the pattern.
third and fourth year: im currenly going into my third year, so i can't speak on difficulty of third and fourth year as i haven't taken them yet, but i can speak on what i've heard and the subjects you will learn. at this point, it becomes more industry skills, including project-based and prototyping. but you will still be continuing to build your skills and build upon knowledge from other courses and learning more advanced material, not necessarily making these years any easier.
in your fourth year, you will also take courses for your capstone project. this is a project that all engineering students work on in their final year, where they build an innovation and share it at the capstone project presentations.
additional firth year: many universities also offer or require a co-op or internship year - my university offers it as an additional year you take between your third and fourth year which i am doing, or some others offer it as one semester doing course-work then the next doing a 4-month co-op/internship pattern throughout 5 years. essentially you work in the field during this year as an intern to gain experience in the field to build connections and also soft skills.
typical day in the life as a biomedical engineering student.
a typical day is usually busy, focused, interesting and also (lowkey) mentally draining, but it all depends on how well you thrive under its environment. its fast-pased and rushed, but the material you learn is genuinely very interesting, including the practical components.
i hate to break it to you but you will most likely have 8ams. not going to lie, my last semester i had 8am class every single day of the week, and then alternating labs which makes those weeks go from 8am to 5pm straight everyday of the week. and even when you have a semester where the classes are a little more distributed, the amount of work you do between makes it definitely a full-time job.
you will spend your days in lectures, but since bme is generally still smaller in class size compared to other engineering majors, you will make lots of friends with your classmates since you do so much teamwork and team-project based work. slotted between lectures will be tutorials to help you learn the practical components from your lectures and ask your profs for help.
along with this will be your labs. labs will generally be fun and also slightly frustrating (lol). you will partake in traditional engineering labs, like mechanical, coding, circuitry etc. but also work in more medical labs, working with stem cells, tissue samples, bioreactors and simulations. you will also be having super cool cadaver labs for anatomy and physiology. you will buy a lab coat, and use centrifuges, conduct pipetting, and use microscopes, which is super fun. the annoying part is the lab reports, since our labs are engineering and medical labs. they will most likely be mostly split up among your lab group, so you have to learn to get along with others.
between all your classes, tutorials and labs, you will go to office hours, and also be studying. like, a lot. working through problem sets, lab reports, readings, research, assignments, reviewing for quizzes and exams, and final projects later on. you will probably be spending most of your time at the library, locking in honestly, either on your own or with others.
im not going to lie, even with being on top of your work, inevitably you are going to have to pull a few all-nighters here and there, and have some very long and exhausting days. but honestly, if you love it, you will love it. (and if you're driven enough, won't let what i just said scare you). i really enjoy that fast-paced environment, i just thrive in it. i just love the material, the labs, etc. and its all so fun to me, even if kind of painful ahaha (especially during finals ngl).
if you want to learn more about romanticizing your school life, which is something i have heavily used so far in my bme degree, feel free to check out my post on how to change hating school (and change your life).
now, again, im still a student so i can only speak on what i know. and i know this is a really big question about this field since lots of people seem to hear: "no one is getting jobs in biomedical engineering!"
biomedical engineering is still very much a new and emerging field. and that means that there are generally fewer jobs as of now compared to other engineering majors. however, with networking through your university or elsewhere and with profs, and getting your name our there, you will find that the stereotypes won't stop you. and there are honestly many biotech and biomedical engineering companies out there, if you can utilize your resources. it does definitely depend on where you live/where you are searching for jobs as well, as some cities are biotech hubs and are what you should be looking for. my uncle is a biomedical engineer, who has worked for many successful biomedical engineering companies, and he says the same thing. its not just about your technical skills - its about your connections, who you know, and your soft skills.
as well, if you are more interested in research rather than industry, you can always get a Masters and PhD, which is what many other engineering majors do as well if they want to specialize in biomedical engineering.
bme is where engineering meets medicine: to create something revolutionary to the lives of people around us. its challenging: but worth it. and with engineering still being male-dominated, the more women we can inspire into the field will help to eventually change the perceptions around it and continue to let the field evolve with new ideas. from designing wearable tech, creating robotic limbs, engineering biomaterials, developing neural implants to combining AI and healthcare, the field is full of innovation and life-changing solutions, and a buzzing energy - which you can be apart of, too.
i love talking about bme, and so if you have any other questions, please do let me know down below or in my ask box.
