Biomedical Engineering Grad School Subdisciplines in the Personal Statement

[joyx]

Hi,

I am applying to BME/BE PhD programs this cycle (mat. fall 2012), and am just looking for advice specifically for BME/BE personal statements. I feel that for most grad school Personal Statements, you need to talk about the subdisciplines you are interested in, so in the case of BME, there are bioelectricity, biomechanics, medical devices, bioimaging, biomaterials, nanobiotechnology, drug delivery, microfluidics, tissue/cellular engineering, bioinformatics/computational biology, etc. etc. etc just to name a few. However, this immediately brings about a number of problems.

Firstly, how important is it to identify one subdiscipline of interest?

Different grad programs name the subdisciplines differently (one may say protein engineering while others may say biomolecular engineering), and consequently define subdisciplines differently, in a more or less inclusive way. In fact, the naming of subdisciplines is all quite arbitrary. Is it really important to say throughout the PS, "oh I've been interested in this one subdiscipline since my high school days and everything I've done in the past is geared towards this one subdiscipline"? Sounds a little unrealistic/pretentious, no?

Secondly, is it bad to say I am interested in more than one subdiscipline in the personal statement?

I like solving biomedical problems using engineering principles and so, I have learned skills and approaches from diverse subdiscplines for the purpose of improving patient care. I know it makes the job of the Ad Com easier to give myself a clear label, so if I say I have experience and interest in 3 different subdisciplines (mechanics, nano and bioinfomatics), then Ad Com can't put me in a specific subdiscipline pile. In this way, would I have a higher chance of getting rejected altogether? Because it confuses the faculty what exactly it is that I am interested in?

Thirdly, what if my subdisciplines of interest don't all align with each of the 2/3 professors I am interested in working with?

Most BME/BE professors and research faculty straddle a few subdisciplines (and a good number a few departments), thanks to the highly highly interdisciplinary nature of this field. If I have experience in A, B and C, but professor X's lab covers A and B, or worse, A and some random D, does it make less sense? And unfortunately, very few labs straddle A, B and C so I can't find a perfect match, if you just look at subdisciplines. Would the confusion make Ad Com think less favorably of my application?

I'm sorry for the long post, but any advice is greatly greatly appreciated! Thank you!

[eesj]

I would mention your interests in the SoP...this would show the reviewer/professor that you are hoping to impress that you have a clear research focus in mind.

[ktel]

^ This. You should have an idea of what you're interested in and what you want to research. You should then also have an idea of the various professors and what they research. Having interest/knowledge in a few different areas shouldn't hurt your application, and in fact would probably help it.