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What are the benefits and unique career prospects for a job candidate with a dual bachelor's degree in computer science and biomedical engineering?

  • I am on the track of pursuing a dual degree in computer science at Emory University (this program is ranked 65th in the US News & World Reports) and a biomedical engineering degree at Georgia Tech (this program is ranked 4th by the same organization as well) via a joint program between the two schools. I initially found this undergraduate road map exciting and believed it to be advantageous for two reasons. ,First of all, I am very passionate about the fields of biomedical engineering and towards my senior year in high school, I came around to discovering a fleeting interest for the applications of computer science in various fields. Secondly, I stumbled upon in my initial search about biomedical engineering about the concern for biomedical engineers who upon graduation from college find it difficult to get jobs without attaining a  Masters degree first. This problem I came to understand from reading on different sites is due to the lack of 'well-grounded-ness' of most undergraduate biomedical engineering programs in the US and the competition from traditional engineering fields like mechanical and electrical engineering for biomedical engineering jobs. Thus, when planning for the next four years of college, I thought that the  dual degree program I intended to pursue would help me to at least understand the two core content of two varying but still related fields and also help me to avoid the lack of 'well-grounded-ness' that I mentioned earlier. Also, I am really more interested in the artificial intelligence and nanotechnology related aspects of biomedical engineering (I beleive these should invovle computer science to a larger degree than other BME specializations) and I thought developing my interest in computer science as a major in my undergraduate years will be an added advantage later on in life. In fact, at worst, I didn't think then -and still don't- that after completing this program within the stipulated 5 years, I will find myself at loss in the job market. However, with life, you can never be so sure...so I just wanted to get the opinions and advice from individuals who have gone further down such road, recruiters at huge companies, and anyone at all who has something valuable to add to the picture. What are the benefits and unique career prospects (and what may be better options if you do not see any or much) if I choose to take this path? Thanks as you help a worried incoming freshman.

  • Answer:

    Don't worry and take charge! Learn as much as you can, whether that's in classes or through internships or through research. My advice would be, do decent in school but no need to only study and get all A's. I've known way too many BME and CS students who knocked their grades out of the park but didn't end up more than 1 internship or side project / research. That's a huge red flag! My advice would be to try lots of projects, and try starting things. Start a club at your school or try commercializing some interesting research you spent a year researching. Intern for interesting companies that are marrying BME / CS (Emerald Therapeutics, Counsyl, 23AndMe, and Transcriptic all come to mind). There's lots to learn and lots of tough problems you can solve in the world with those 2 skill sets. For inspiration, check out someone like Jeremy Blum (http://www.jeremyblum.com/portfolio  ) who did a wide range of projects and is now working at Google X Labs! He maximized his college learning experience and I would figure out what you could learn from someone like him!

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Assuming you are working hard and truly learning the materials in both fields I don't expect you will have problems getting a job out of college.  That being said I expect it may lean more to the Computer Science side rather than the biomed engineering side for the exact worries you mentioned.  In advanced engineering positions a Masters degree will be preferred, or equivalent experience.  There are advanced engineering certifications to consider as an alternative but they sometimes require a certain amount of time on the job before you can take the test.  Overall I think you have a good combination if you can handle the workload.  Make sure you consider any and all internship options for both fields, real world experience always plays a factor when hiring managers are choosing between new grads.

Shaun McCurdy

Personally, I would concentrate on the Biomedical Engineering program and learn coding as electives.  If you read my writing on CIS education as a whole, you will find I am deeply suspicious of these programs.   I would almost exclusively hire drop-outs from these programs, not graduates.  Programming is best learned by coding and mentorship.  Yes, books help one ton, but so often the school approach is to define what can be graded, as opposed to what is really sweet. However, the more corporate bent of the CIS education stream may be useful for a Biomedical Engineer supervising this sort of project.  However, this would once again be best pursued after a couple of years of experience in the field.  I am afraid that the dual major, rather than making you more employable will actually initially cut the number of opportunities you can look at to a much narrower band of companies seeking this dual skill mix.  And worse, you will miss those critical years of Engineer in Training perhaps lost in a coding project that will be long forgotten when you should be at the peak of your Engineering expertise.

David Powell

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