citrus00

I'm currently doing Master's in Biomedical engineering (thesis in neurophysiology lab) and I'm considering a phd for neuroscience. What kind of jobs do people get after finishing up phd in neuroscience (other than academia/teaching jobs)? I know most people who are doing PhDs are aiming to stay in academia and I hope the same for myself, but I know that oftentimes things don't work as planned. (I'm kind of paranoid about having a backup plan when things don't go as planned cuz my previous plan 'failed' and I was forced to change my career.)

I wasn't an engineering major in college but I'm going to grad school in engineering. I took a few deficient pre-req courses (all math classes) in the local community college. I'll be submitting the transcript to the grad school before the start of the school year. They specifically said that it is highly recommended that I should take these courses before matriculation. For summer, I'm currently taking engineering courses in a state college (different college) that is potentially gonna help me in grad school. I learned that it is NOT necessarily a pre-requisite... from the conversation I had with the professor in my grad school. I'm nonetheless taking it because I know I will be weak in physics/engineering compared to people from engineering background. However, I had to skip the first semester of the course (the course has I and II) because they're not offered in the summer. Because of that, I am struggling and I'm not sure I'm gonna get a good grade. Am I required to submit this transcript as well? (I know that for application, I MUST submit ALL transcripts. But I'm not sure if I have to submit this one when I'm already accepted and these are just extra classes that I'm taking for my benefit.) If I have to submit it, i'm thinking of withdrawing the class but I still want to learn the materials. Please help me out if you know anything about submitting transcripts for extra classes! I'd really appreciate your help!!

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 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!

Have you guys decided on which schools to attend? @scared @mungbean_ @BME_Engineering @lafry @DCap Just wondering :S

I think they release results around the end of this week or early next week. I've searched postings about Stanford bioE and they all seem to have come out around 3/30 for past couple years. I called Stanford to confirm too and they said they will probably get the results this week. So... anytime now or soon!

I don't really know any more details about the program because I didn't apply for CBID and only asked a couple questions about it. It says on the website that it is non-research based program. I believe what it means is that it is rather a project-based. It says "students work with physicians to identify problems and then design and build products to solve these problems" and "interact with clinical and corporate sponsors." It focuses on building/designing a product and commercialization. Also, I believe the curriculum for CBID is already set and you don't really have a list of electives to choose from: https://cbid.bme.jhu.edu/academics/graduate-studies/curriculum/ On the other hand, I heard that, for MSE students, you can customize your schedule by taking courses from other majors (other engineering, math, etc.) as long as you satisfy minimum requirement for the graduation.

Update on my status Accepted to Rutgers for M.S. in BME today Rejected from UCSD for M.S. in Bioengineering yesterday.. first rejection of the season Still waiting for Stanford, UCLA, UC Irvine

I don't think there is a "massive" difference. I believe a lot of people with MS still join the industry. I think M.Eng. is just more practical with business coursework, etc. while MS is more academic. I would never think that they teach you less for MS compared to MEng

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?

Thank you all for sharing!! I live relatively close to Baltimore (a little less than 3 hr drive) so I'm planning to pay a visit to JHU sometime next week. They don't have campus tour or visiting days so I will just have to look around myself and ask them some questions about the program. I will update you with the things that I find out. @BME_Engineering I did not get funding for JHU or Duke, but I did for BU. I'm looking at industries as of now but I don't know how my plans will change. @DCap I don't know much about CBID program, but I can ask some questions about it when I'm there.

I haven't heard back anything yet.... not sure if it is a silent rejection or not

Hey guys! Like I mentioned in the "Masters Applicants for Fall 2018" thread in Waiting It Out Forum, I have created a thread for BME/Bioengineering people! Even though I have not received all the results back from schools, I probably should start researching into the schools I got accepted to make a wise decision! This thread is to share and exchange information about BME/Bioengineering programs of different schools. I will try my best to gather information about schools, using all my resources (internet, friends, visiting campus) and update this thread. And... I would greatly appreciate if you do the same! I assume the topics will be about... Curriculum, School Atmosphere, Prestige, Career Services, Students, Faculty, Facilities, Research, Location, Quality of Life, Tuition, Cost of Living, etc. I'm tagging a few of people from "Masters Applicants for Fall 2018" thread to get this started. @scared @mungbean_ @BME_Engineering @lafry Current BME/Bioengineering students (grads and undergrads) are more than welcome to comment and add any relevant information for us! Thanks!

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.

Thank you for all your posts! Seems like a lot of you are still waiting on most schools.. like me It just turned February so hang in there and let's keep each other updated....!

I just wanted to make a thread for Masters applicants for Fall 2018. I see a lot of posts are for PhD applicants but not really Masters! Where did you guys apply? What kind of programs did you guys apply for? Have you heard back from any of them yet? Let's talk while waiting for the results =] Here's a little bits of how I'm doing: Field/Program: Biomedical Engineering, M.S. and M.S.E. Schools: UCLA, UCSD, UC-Irvine, Duke, Rutgers, Boston, Johns Hopkins Status? Haven't heard anything back yet... Although I was contacted by one of the professors from UCLA.