Phd in biology with a bachelor's degree in engineering

[parisa86]

Hi,

 

To be short, I am coming from an engineering background but I want to apply for PhD in biology for top schools. I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences in this regard.

Thank you in advance!

 

 

Details:

 

I have a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from university of florida with a GPA of 3.93 and master's degree from Georgia Tech with a GPA of 3.5. I have undergraduate research experience as an NSF REU student. I also have 3 semesters of research experience at the Georgia Tech working in nanotechnology area making biosensor devices. This research resulted in one conference paper publication and a workshop publication. 

 

I am planning to take GRE biology subject test to supplement my application as I am not a traditional biology student. Also, I am looking to get into pure biology programs and not bioengineering, biomedical or computational biology sorts of majors. 

 

What are your suggestions for increasing my chances? or What do you think about my chances for getting into top schools?

 

Thanks a lot for reading this and helping with your answers. 

[bamafan]

I think you would be fine honestly. You'll be at a disadvantage, but students come from unconventional backgrounds all the time and your research experience would help a lot.

 

That said, why aren't you applying to bioE or compB type programs? It sounds like you'd be a better fit both based on qualifications and interests. It's not that you can't do those things as a "pure bio" PhD, but rather, I'm trying to figure out why you want to be pure bio in the first place.

[parisa86]

I think you would be fine honestly. You'll be at a disadvantage, but students come from unconventional backgrounds all the time and your research experience would help a lot.

 

That said, why aren't you applying to bioE or compB type programs? It sounds like you'd be a better fit both based on qualifications and interests. It's not that you can't do those things as a "pure bio" PhD, but rather, I'm trying to figure out why you want to be pure bio in the first place.

 

The reason is I don't want to do engineering work. For example, while I was doing my research, I was fabricating biosensor devices and I was very involved with the engineering side and we had a professor collaborator from the biology department who was guiding us on the biology side. To be honest, slowly, I started to get more and more absorbed to the biology side than the engineering side. I took a course in cancer biology after that which I really loved!, more than any other engineering courses that  had taken before. So, I had a change of heart while doing my research. I don't mind doing some analytical work or device design for my research but I don't want engineering and computation be the major part of my research. I want to be involved and know as much as a biologist. 

[bamafan]

The reason is I don't want to do engineering work. For example, while I was doing my research, I was fabricating biosensor devices and I was very involved with the engineering side and we had a professor collaborator from the biology department who was guiding us on the biology side. To be honest, slowly, I started to get more and more absorbed to the biology side than the engineering side. I took a course in cancer biology after that which I really loved!, more than any other engineering courses that  had taken before. So, I had a change of heart while doing my research. I don't mind doing some analytical work or device design for my research but I don't want engineering and computation be the major part of my research. I want to be involved and know as much as a biologist. 

 

This is a poor reason to apply to a purely biology PhD in my opinion. It's a common misconception that bioengineering is the same as bioMEDICAL engineering, which it really is not. In practice, there is little difference in the research you'll be able to do in any of these majors. It just depends on your interests and what projects/labs you decide to go into. The main difference will probably just be in your classes and how easy it will be get in to the program.

 

You can go into an engineering major like BioE and it doesn't have to have anything to do with devices. I have a bioE background, but my work is all in synthetic and systems biology, as in engineering life (bacteria as factories). That's as "pure bio" as it gets. Some of my co-grads in my UG major were likewise DNA engineers or protein engineers, some even molecular and chemical engineering in practice. We never touched any sort of device nor computational work (I switched actually and am now doing a computational track). On the other hand, being in an interdisciplinary or broader based program gives you flexibility and options if you do want to do something more along your original background (just as I was more or less pure bio in practice, some other students built microscopes and microfluidic devices or did tissue engineering, which is more mechE). 

 

Given this last point, I encourage you to apply to bioE programs since it'll honestly be easier for you to get in with your qualifications and background. Don't be scared off by the names of the programs, they aren't really restrictive defined boundaries -- regardless of what program you get into, it will not limit what you are want to do (if anything, being bio only could limit you as the faculty will not be interdisciplinary and may not have access or collaborations with other groups, which is very useful and important). 

[bamafan]

Also, I know of at least two EECS students who got into Berkeley Comp Bio and MIT CSBi respectively. You'll be fine, but again, I think you're chances will be higher if you choose the seemingly more relevant programs to your background. Trust me, if you want to do cancer research for instance, regardless of your final PhD program, you'll be able to do the exact same work and experiments as you would in a regular bio program. 

[parisa86]

Thanks a lot bamafan for your detailed answer! You are right! I can probably enter the bioengineering programs and do similar research as bio majors. I am currently preparing for GRE and the biology subject test while working full time. I haven't had the chance to explore different labs yet.

 

By the way, the two EECS students you were talking about, what schools were they coming from and what research background?

[bamafan]

Yup, no problem. That's the most important thing when choosing a program honestly, seeing if there are faculty with whom you'd like to work.

 

They were from UCSC and Washington respectively, I believe with specialties in bioinformatics and machine learning. If you don't mind me asking, what's your research background?

[selecttext]

There are so many areas of biology that are desperately in need of physically minded people. What aspect of biology interests you? sure you can work on applied topics in biomed/compbio etc but there is a huge need for engineers in fundamental areas of ecology and evolutionary biology. The biological world is your oyster with an elec background. you will easily find keen supervisors.

Edited April 16, 2013 by selecttext

[parisa86]

Yup, no problem. That's the most important thing when choosing a program honestly, seeing if there are faculty with whom you'd like to work.

 

They were from UCSC and Washington respectively, I believe with specialties in bioinformatics and machine learning. If you don't mind me asking, what's your research background?

My summer undergraduate research was basically circuit design. My graduate research was centered around fabrication of devices called nanowire field effect transistors as biosensors. Most of my time was spent to fabricate this device and show it works in dry conditions (without biological sample). Because of my research and my current job, I have a lot of experience in semiconductor fabrication.