MS in BME help

[ucsdbme]

Hello,

I am currently a senior majoring in BME at UCSD. My parents are pushing me to apply to grad school and I don't have a good GPA to apply to any of the good colleges. I was wondering if I can get some guidance as to what school I should apply too. I do not want to apply to very crappy schools.

My grades

GPA = 2.6

GRE Math = 156 Verbal = 144 and writing haven't received yet.

I can get 2 letter of recs from the post docs I am currently working for and ask for 1 letter of rec. from my senior design professor. It is also a possibility that I might be able to get my name on a paper by December, so 1 publication possibly.

I was thinking of applying to USC and UCR, as they are decent school with new BME programs. If anyone has any better suggestions for me as to where I should apply, that would be very helpful.

​Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you

[rjd150]

I'm not going to lie those are not very good stats. The minimum cutoff at most schools is a 3.0 gpa. Also I'm not sure how recs from post docs will be looked at by adcoms. you might want to talk to ghanada though...

[ghanada]

haha I like how I've become the default low gpa person to talk to. Thanks for the referral.

But yeah, like rjd150 said, your stats are going to make this an uphill battle. FIRST OF ALL, do YOU want to goto grad school? It is time to stop doing things your parents want you to do and start making decisions for yourself. If you don't have a need to goto grad school, then don't. Look for jobs. If you like research, look for an RA job at a university. Grad school will be expensive and time consuming so if you don't know why you are doing it, you probably shouldn't be doing it. I would suggest you start doing a job search and see if the jobs you want REQUIRE grad school.

If you are set on doing grad school, particularly an MS, then I will warn you that you are most likely going to have to go out of state. Cali admissions are tough right now because of crappy economy so with your stats you will have a tough tie staying in Cali. Also, try not to think of it as "where can my stats get me into"? Start looking for schools that you are legitimately interested in and have faculty doing work you want to do. The point of doing grad school is to gain a strong specialization in an area beyond what was offered in undergrad. There is no point in just picking a random school and taking more classes. That won't help in any meaningful way in terms of job opportunities. You should be looking for programs that will give you a solid set of skills that you require and that will have connections to the jobs you want. Also, if you don't desire to do research or academia, consider looking for schools that offer an MEng. These degrees are focused on industry and tend to be easier to get into than MS, although that is not always the case.

[ucsdbme]

First of all, i would like to thank you for the reply.

I personally want to start working after I graduate. But I have heard a lot about how just having a BS in BENG will not get you any jobs, especially in this economy. Only reason i am willing to do masters is to increase my chances of getting a job in industry. I don't think I would like to go for a PHD though.

Like you mentioned I should look into schools according to my interest in a particular area and then apply to it. I thought that was mostly for PHD programs and since I want to go into industry, I just do a Masters with non-thesis and that will help/increase my chances of getting jobs in the bioengineering industry. Please let me know if this is not how it works.

If I want to do a masters with non-thesis, how important is the school that I attend? Would you recommend me doing a masters with non-thesis or MEng?

[ghanada]

Again, I think you need to focus on what types of jobs you want. Do grad school if the jobs you want require graduate degrees. If not, don't do it. Getting a Masters can easily cost you $50-100k if you go out of state and have to also afford living expenses. Do you want to spend that much money on a degree that might not even be helpful to what you want to do? There is also such a thing as being "over-qualified" for positions. This is why it is really important to know what types of degrees/skills you need for jobs. Don't just do grad school because you don't feel like looking for jobs.

I still stand by my point that you should find schools that offer specialization areas in things you are interested in. Think about the people that are getting these industry jobs. If you were an employer, would you rather hire someone with a low GPA that took some general grad courses without any project/thesis/work experience, or take someone that took specific courses/labs and did a 1-2 semester project designing and applying skills directly applicable to what you do?

You really need to spend some time looking at job postings. You are going to have a hard time finding industry jobs with no experience required, just a degree. Companies are VERY specific about what skills they are looking for and if all you do in your Master is take some math, chem, and bio courses, I doubt you will gain the relevant skills you need to get a good job.

[Gregg30]

I would graduate and try to find a job and then have them pay for the graduate school. If you can find someone to do that, then that is the way I would go. If not, look to see what kind of online engineering schools there are out there. Then the cost would be less too!