BME/Bioengineering PhD decision

[bobari]

Hello!

So I was accepted into UCSD and Georgia Tech for a phd in bioengineering/biomedical engineering.  I'm not really sure where I should go.  There are like 4 professors at each school who I'd be interested in doing research with (i'm interested in tissue engineering/stem cells/regenerative medicine...etc.).  I really liked SD as a city when i visited but i was only there for 2 days.  I'm also worried that the 25k stipend won't be enough to live on in an expensive city like SD.  I was wondering if anyone here has any advice as to where I should go?   Right now I'm leaning towards UCSD just because I'd like to experience living in San Diego (I'm from Long Island and go to undergrad in Pittsburgh), but I'm generally just pretty confused.  I'm definitely looking for an enjoyable experience both academically and socially.  Any advice?  Any current or past students with positive or negative experiences to share? Thanks!

[along]

Wow Congrats man. I'm in the same situation. I was accepted to Gatech and UCSD both for bioengineering (and others that i dont really care) with funding. I know that Gatech and UCSD are both top 2 in bioengineering programs according to the USNEWS. However, Gatech is the top 4 and UCSD is in the top 14 in best school in engineering. That is a big difference to me. I had many friends who went to UCSD and said it is very good but not as good as GaTech in terms of engineering power. Most of my friends suggested me, to go to Gatech. But I'm confused and I want to make a right choise having a lot of information. They mentioned La Jolla is a beautiful place compare to Atlanta and life is much better.

What school is the best for doing a phd in bioengineering, in terms of doing excellent research,getting a job after finishing it, and which one sound more renowned?. I don't really care about cities since I'll be probably a f...ing slave during my phd studyies, with no life and no time to enjoy. I think all of us had taken into account that before pursuing a phd.

Thanks to all the members who will give me suggestions.

[bobari]

Congrats to you too.  I'm asking the same questions haha.   I'm more interested in going into industry rather than academia I think, so which school would a bio/engineering-related company be more likely to hire from?  It seems like GT has a bigger program with more faculty, but that aside I found plenty of people at both schools with interesting research.  I wonder if i met you on the interview weekends.  I'm at GT right now for a visit and was at UCSD towards the end of Febuary.  

[along]

Both universities are top-notch. Yeah seems that GT has a bigger program than UCSD. What I think is that UCSD is doing fundamental science while Gatech is doing both fundamental and applied science. If you are planning to join industry after all, I think San diego is a biotech place with a lot of companies; however I have no much information about Atlanta.

I think I will go to Gtech

Hope someone give some comments to make my final desicion.

[DJLamar]

I'm a current undergrad at Georgia Tech in a field unrelated to yours, but I can answer questions about Atlanta if you have anything specific. Be aware though that if you just ask me for general impressions of the city I will undoubtedly just talk it up (you can already get my "Atlanta is cool" speech in any one of several topics related to Georgia Tech and Atlanta on this board, I think).

[along]

Thanks DJLamar,

Can you talk about G Tech? like the quality of courses, quality of professor (are they really awesome), and research opportunities.

Will GTech students be competitive at hunting jobs outside Georgia? Does G Tech is renowed outside Georgia state?

Thanks again DJLamar for your fast reply.

Waiting for your feedbacks.

[along]

I feel Georgia Tech is much better than UCSD in bioengineering. Can someone tell me otherwise or give me other point of view? With this funding, they cannot do it bad

Read the Complete article at

http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/biological-machines/

Probing Cell Clusters: Georgia Tech is a Partner in New $25M NSF Center that will Investigate the Creation of Biological Machines

While the behaviors of individual cells and the functions and properties of tissues and organs have been extensively studied, the complex interactions of cell clusters have not been examined in great detail.

Robert Nerem, the Parker H. Petit Distinguished Chair for Engineering in Medicine at Georgia Tech, will serve as an associate director of the new EBICS Center and will oversee the Center’s diversity objectives.

The new $25-million Emergent Behaviors of Integrated Cellular Systems (EBICS) Center to be operated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Georgia Institute of Technology intends to change that.

The EBICS Center — established by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of its Science and Technology Centers Integrative Partnerships program — aims to advance research in complex biological systems, create new educational programs based on this research, and demonstrate leadership in its involvement of groups traditionally underrepresented in science and engineering.

“Ultimately, we envision being able to create biological modules — sensors, processors, actuators — that can be combined in various ways to produce different capabilities,” said Roger Kamm, Germeshausen Professor of Mechanical and Biological Engineering at MIT, and the Center’s founding director. “If we are successful, this will open up an entirely new field of research with wide-ranging implications, from regenerative medicine to developmental biology.”

Georgia Tech will receive more than $1.6 million per year to support the research and educational efforts in the EBICS Center. Georgia Tech’s participation in the Center will be administered through the Georgia Tech/Emory Center (GTEC) for Regenerative Medicine. Robert Nerem, who is an associate director of EBICS and the director of GTEC, will work closely with Kamm and the other associate directors to achieve the Center’s educational and research goals, and oversee its diversity objectives.

Georgia Tech faculty will contribute to the development of the knowledge, tools and technologies necessary to create these highly sophisticated biological machines.

“Critical to the successful design of engineered cellular systems is a fundamental understanding of interactions between cells and their environment, their control by biochemical and mechanical cues, and the coordinated behavior of functional biological machines,” said Gang Bao, the Robert A. Milton Chair in Biomedical Engineering in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

Gang Bao, the Robert A. Milton Chair in Biomedical Engineering in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, will coordinate the EBICS Center’s four research areas. (Click image for high-resolution version. Credit: Gary Meek)

Bao will coordinate the Center’s four research areas, which include:

* Investigating how individual cells integrate the various biological, biochemical and physical cues from their environments to determine their ultimate states and biological behaviors.

* Determining the emergent behaviors and interactions of cell clusters, including the transition from single cell to multi-cell behavior, the nature of communication between cells, and how this leads to functional coordination among neighboring cells and cell populations.

* Creating and characterizing simple cellular machines that perform increasingly complex tasks, such as sensing, information processing, protein expression and transport.

* Developing enabling technologies to ensure the goals of the other three areas can be met.