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scared

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    So.. where should I go? - BME/Bioenigneering

    in Decisions, Decisions

    Posted

    Tha

    On 4/20/2018 at 2:41 AM, citrus00 said:

    I got into UCLA, UC Irvine, Rutgers, BU, JHU, and Duke and.. I decided to attend JHU!
    I guess I will see you there @BME_Engineering :D 

    Towards the end I was choosing between Duke and JHU.

    It was a REALLY hard decision for me.  

    I visited both schools and I definitely liked Duke campus and its neighborhood a lot more than JHU. However, there were no funding/scholarships whatsoever. :(
    I would've chosen Duke if they provided me with some scholarships.... :/ but they said none.
    (I already have my undergraduate loan sitting on my shoulders... so $$$ was a major factor.) 
    Like lafry said, Duke was super industry-focused but I am not sure if it's a plus for me because I'm still not 100% sure whether I will go into the industry or stay in academia. 

    And JHU's funding for the second year is something I couldn't turn down. (Even if I can't find a lab, I can graduate after one year with enough coursework.) Also, JHU is much closer to my family!

    Two things that still concerned me about JHU was 1. the neighborhood/area (I heard a lot of stories about the neighborhood being dangerous) and 2. the curriculum (due to the recent curriculum change none of the focus area exactly fit my interest)

    1. However, the neighborhood wasn't as bad as I expected when I visited. I tend to study and stay at home mostly anyways.
    2. As for the focus area, I found a lab of my interest and I had a chance to talk to the PI when I visited. He said he will guide me through choosing appropriate courses for his research. And as long as I take the minimum required courses for graduation I can customize my schedule (and talking to him will be helpful in planning my schedule).

    So, JHU it is!
     

    That's great!! Congratulations, and good luck!

    USC vs. Duke

    in The April 15th is this week! Freak-out forum.

    Posted · Edited by scared

    I'm an international student from India and I've been offered admission to Duke and USC for an MS in BME. I've spoken to a lot of people from both colleges, and I seem to get the general idea that USC is a great place primarily because of its location in California where there are a lot of BT/Biomed companies. But I'm still pretty torn between them, since Duke has a great program and offers me the flexibility to really explore what I like. As somebody who wants to enter the industry, I'm not sure if I should pick the much lower ranked program/good location, or great program/okay location. Any sights?

    So.. where should I go? - BME/Bioenigneering

    in Decisions, Decisions

    Posted

    1 hour ago, citrus00 said:

    Okay, so.. I didn't really get to visit JHU this week.
    I called the program manager and he said not to drive all the way there just to ask him some questions and tour around.
    I agreed that it would be more worth my 6-hr drive if i have other appointments (appointments with professors? or labs? possibly) set up.
    So, I think I will visit after I talk to some people there.

    However, I was on the phone with the program manager for 40 minutes, asking him my list of questions and.. here are some things I found out about JHU!

    Tuition for 1st year: As you probably read from the acceptance letter, every M.S.E. student is required to take one year of coursework (it doesn't matter whether you're doing M.S.E. with thesis or without thesis). The student is fully responsible for paying the tuition for the first year, unless he/she has external funding. It also says on the letter that you can work as a TA but the money wouldn't be a lot (obviously). I asked him how difficult it is to get a TA position, and he was not really clear about it and just mentioned that we can also work at other (not BME) departments as TAs or find other student job opportunities. So, I am assuming that it is not easy to get one. 

    Tuition for 2nd year: By the end of the first year, you need to have a lab that you want to work in. If you have a lab confirmed, they will pay 80% of your tuition (even if you did not secure the funding with the professor). So.. it's basically.. if you have funding you don't have to pay for your second year. If you don't have funding, you will have to pay 20% of your tuition. He said it is an "incentive" for students to stay one year longer. 

    Finding the lab: While you're taking courses during the first year, you can take Grant Methodology course along with other courses to try out different labs within your focus area. Grant Methodology course is for those who are not sure which lab to join and want to try out different labs. If you cannot fit Grant Methodology course in your schedule, you can separately set up hours with labs you are interested and try out how it fits with what you wanna do. I asked him if there is anybody who was forced to graduate because he/she didn't find a lab and secure the funding, and he said there is one student who's graduating after her first year because she didn't (couldn't???) find a lab and funding secured. He mentioned something like... she was not really "forced" to graduate, rather she "decided" to graduate. Not sure how often that happens in other schools but... if somebody can comment on this.. it would be helpful!

     About not being able to take CBID classes: I briefly asked him about regular M.S.E. students not being able to take CBID classes. I'm actually not sure about business classes ( @scared mentioned) but he said the classes they offer CBID students greatly focus (or even limited to) on their projects. Even if we are able to take those CBID courses, it wouldn't be as helpful to us because we are not doing the projects. Also, he said we would be able to find courses that cover the same topics in our course catalog and they will be more in-depth. 

    So... these are what I learned from him... I asked a few more questions specific to my interest area and career plans.
    If you have any questions about JHU, you can ask me and I 'll try to answer as much as I can.

    And I actually have a side question for you guys.
    Do you know how important it is to have an internship experience during school as a biomedical engineer if you plan on going to the industry?

    This was a question that I had, too, since I found out that a lot of JHU students work on their thesis during the summer rather than doing internships (atleast, this is the idea I got from the students I spoke to). I've spoken to students from USC and Duke as well, and I think that if you're planning to work in the industry after you graduate, it would probably be pretty important in terms of networking, the connections you make and the job experience you secure that could help with your job search after you finish your degree. Personally, this is the main reason why I'm not sure I want to pick JHU. 

    So.. where should I go? - BME/Bioenigneering

    in Decisions, Decisions

    Posted · Edited by scared

    So from what I've gathered (trying to choose between JHU, Duke and UMich)

    UMich: Adv: Great program, great research opportunities
                 Disadv: Finding good BME jobs/internships around this area will probably be more difficult than, say, for a mechanical engineer. And the weather.

    JHU:    Adv: Highly research oriented program, top rank, great brand name
                Diadv:  More focus on PhD's and undergrads than on Master's students for jobs/internships?? From what I can tell, if you pick the thesis track, you can't take any of the more business-y classes available for CBID students. Not to mention that fitting all your classes into one year, rotating in labs AND trying to find a thesis advisor; and then doing thesis research the next, feels a very very hectic schedule, and not very flexible.

    Duke: Adv: Great industry/research collabs, you can rotate around in labs before picking one to settle in and internships/jobs shouldn't be a huge problem thanks to the RTP.  Lower cost of living in Durham
              Diadv: Not as prestigious as JHU, and living in Durham (small college town, not much to do/see, not close to any major city)

     

     

    Masters Applicants for Fall 2018!! Anybody out there?

    in Waiting it Out

    Posted

    11 hours ago, citrus00 said:

    I see the thread got a lot longer than I first expected. Nice to see a lot of Master's applicants !!!

    I haven't really been keeping up with the posts as the thread starter. 
    So, here's an update! I, too,  just got accepted to JHU! I have Duke, BU, and JHU and I am not sure which one would be best for me.
    If anybody has extra info about the schools (labs, neighborhood, curriculum, school atmosphere, etc), let me know as well!
    maybe I should start a thread about choosing schools for BME in the Decisions forum and we can start discussing there without making this a decisions thread.

    Yeah this would actually be very useful hahah

    Duke BME vs. UMich BME

    in Decisions, Decisions

    Posted · Edited by scared

    So I'm currently trying to choose between Duke's M.S. in BME program, and UMich's M.S. in BME program based on (in the following order)

    1. Availability of jobs --> I'm not too keen on working for a huge company? I'd rather work for a mid-sized company, well funded, that allows me to gain some useful and hands-on experience. I've heard that UMich BME has some issues when it comes to finding good BME internships and jobs (compared to Duke and its proximity to the RTP). Is this true? 

    2.  Availability of funding

    3. Flexibility wrt concentration

    4.  Durham vs. Ann Arbor

     

    Anybody have any tips?

    Masters Applicants for Fall 2018!! Anybody out there?

    in Waiting it Out

    Posted

    6 minutes ago, lafry said:

    I have just been accepted to University of Michigan's BME MS program! Excited!

    So now, I have heard positive responses from USC, Duke, Northwestern, and University of Michigan. 

    Still waiting on UCLA, Purdue, and University of Washington.

    Looks like my decision will be harder than I thought!

    Me too! Was very very surprised to hear back, because when I mailed the department a few days ago to ask when decisions come out, they told me that we would be informed in April o.o

    Masters Applicants for Fall 2018!! Anybody out there?

    in Waiting it Out

    Posted · Edited by scared

    14 hours ago, bfirkus said:

    I applied to USC's MS biomedical engineering program but have not heard back from them. The app portal says everything has been submitted on time. Do they stagger admissions? Or is it a rolling admissions process? Admittedly, I submitted the app very close to the deadline, so maybe they notified you because you submitted your materials before me?

    I just got my offer of admission, and I submitted my fully completed application in December - much before the deadline. Some of my seniors from college got theirs in March when they applied last year. So I'm not sure how this process works.

    Then again, I'm international....does that make a difference?

     

    On another note, does anybody know when the last date to accept/decline this offer is?

    ETH Zurich for BME

    in Waiting it Out

    Posted

    Has anybody (or anybody you know of) heard back from ETH Zurich for Msc. in BME? They're supposed to send out decisions before March 15th, but I see that a lot of other branches have received theirs already, so I was wondering.

    Masters Applicants for Fall 2018!! Anybody out there?

    in Waiting it Out

    Posted

    My stats are 

    GRE: 162V/160Q

    GPA: I'm an international student so its 8.85/10, but my WES eval showed 4.0? Idk how to interpret that in terms of the American system.

    Experience:

    1 Bioinfomatics project (nationally funded, collaborated with a famous hospital in my city) with a paper in the making, 1 MEMS mini-project 

    2 internships at reputed institutes in my country. During the latter, I helped to set up a diagnostic lab, collaborated with hospitals, etc. 

    Also selected for a prestigious fellowship program (that I turned down for personal reasons, mentioned in my statement)

    1 review paper in a not-so-famous journal

    and I've applied to USC, UCSD, Duke, UMich, JHU and ETH for M.S. in BME.

     

    What are my chances guys? :/ I'm really worried that I didn't pick enough safety schools....

     

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