The Bioengineering curriculum is jam-packed. There are 132 required hours, which averages out to 16.5 hours per semester for a typical 4-year student. 1 hour is devoted to introducing bioengineering freshman to their major, college, and university through Engineering 100 and Bioengineering 120. BIOE 120 specifically consists of guest lecturers in the field of bioengineering; this course allows students to see the applications of their chosen program, which is important as they take the generic math, biology, and chemistry classes first semester.
34 hours comprise the "foundational mathematics and science," which includes two semesters of chemistry and lab, 4 semesters of calculus/differential equations, and 3 semesters of physics. These courses provide the basic scientific fundamentals that are needed for all engineering disciplines.
52 hours are components of the "technical core," which includes most of the courses that are actually in the bioengineering department as well as a lot of biology. There are also statistics and organic chemistry courses. 2 additional hours are an ethics/professionalism component of Senior Design, the capstone course in the Bioengineering sequence.
15 hours are used for the track electives, which allow the student to develop their program of study in one of five tracks: Biomechanics, Biomolecular, Cell and Tissue Engineering, Computational and Systems Biology, or Imaging and Sensing. I am in the Imaging and Sensing track, and my track electives have included electrical engineering classes that have given me a background in medical imaging methodologies such as ultrasound and MRI.
18 hours are devoted to social sciences and humanities. Students must fulfill a variety of requirements through these general education classes, including taking classes with both a Western and a non-Western cultural component. An additional 4 hours are taken by Rhetoric 105, which introduces students to effective writing techniques.
The remaining 6 hours are set aside as free electives. Students are allowed to use these hours in any way they wish.
I don't think there is any way to reduce the foundational course load. The foundational courses are aptly named: They really are important for a basic scientific background, and the skills learned through them are called on throughout the curriculum and in industry as well. Calculus and differential equations are important in almost every engineering application, both in the university setting and elsewhere. The physics and chemistry skills are essential for understanding the concepts of the upper level courses, and important background skills for engineering applications as well.
The core courses are a slightly different story. Depending on the path you choose, you may not need the skills and knowledge learned in a specific course that is part of the core curriculum. For instance, a engineer who works with a pharmaceutical company may not need to know the electrical systems learned about in Bioinstrumentation. That being said, I personally would not feel comfortable calling myself a bioengineer without having had all the core classes, even though I may not be using everything in my job after graduation.
One big reason I feel this way is that most people do not have the same job their whole lives. A degree gives you something to fall back on, and if you remove some of the importance and depth of the degree, it is not as valuable. Obviously a classroom setting is not the only way to gain the learning needed for a degree, but the core classes offer a breadth of knowledge that cannot be replaced by experiential learning unless those experiences are in the right sub-fields of bioengineering, and then it would serve little purpose to replace the core courses.
The track electives allow for a depth of learning in one specific branch of bioengineering. I can only speak to the Imaging and Sensing track, which I am in. If anything, I think that the track could benefit from more courses. 15 hours is just barely enough to catch up with the electrical engineering knowledge and specific applications to bioengineering. There is certainly no room to prune any hours.
What is left? The social sciences/humanities hours and the 6 free hours. These hours are designated by the College of Engineering (not the Bioengineering Department) to round out the education. The specific requirements are supposed to ensure that students are getting an education that includes a lot of different viewpoints and skills. ('supposed to' because engineering students often take soft options to satisfy these requirements, like Technical Writing for the advanced composition requirement. This is understandable if you consider that 15 technical hours is a lot of work in one semester--no one wants a lot of work in a gen-ed class they probably aren't all that interested in on top of that.)
Removing hours from the engineering courses to devote to free electives does not make sense to me. There are simply no hours to spare from the curriculum. If the goal the university education were to fully develop life skills (like learning to learn, communications skills, and a sense of citizenship) with just enough technical skills to pass into a job, then a dramatic restructuring of the curriculum would be in order. I think the university presents an opportunity to become an expert in a field: that is what a degree signifies. Obviously life skills are important, but they can be developed through other avenues than class (i.e. experiential learning). I could have amazing life skills, but I would not feel comfortable with my degree without the depth and breadth of knowledge and skills in my field conferred by the curriculum as it stands.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
You pose an interesting question when you talk about changing jobs in mid career. People certainly can't expect to stay with the same employer their entire career. (They may very well not stay within the same line of work, thought that is a bit of a red herring for this discussion.)
ReplyDeleteIn some other fields with professional certification, veterinary medicine is one example, practitioners are obligated to get professional development education on a periodic basis to ensure that their current set of skills is up to professional standards. This suggests that the model where all the formal education precedes work force participation may prove to be something of an anachronism. I assume Bioengineering is a rapidly changing field and will continue to be that way for some time into the future. So I don't quite understand the sense of assurance you have that your intellectual foundations in the field will remain so for years to come.
There is a different matter where the folks in Accounting are ahead of the folks in Engineering in thinking about the cost/business model that underlies the education. To a large extent, the benefits of your education will be captured by your future employer(s). So they should be willing to pick up some of the tab for this (and perhaps have some say on the nature of the instruction).
What you have described above is almost a 5-year program (consider your comments about the track electives). Suppose that's where we're headed with the last year or two a Master's degree at elevated tuition paid for by the employer and the first three or four years a bachelors degree paid by the student and/or the student's family. In Accounting, where there a 150-hour requirement to sit for the CPA exam, we're seeing this sort of thing now. I'd expect the model to move to other disciplines, even without the certification exam to enforce the conclusion.
If this makes even a little sense then the next question is whether there should be some real work experience, not internships, between the degrees. MBA programs want that experience (though the undergraduate degree may very well not be in Business, so it is not strictly comparable).
So while I understand the desire to generate the competence in the field that you so desire, I can see many alternative paths to getting it. Were there these other possible paths, the issue of life skills might be better considered - are they too valued by the employer? As of late some American Companies have developed a reputation for being myopic in their own investments. Thinking about this longer term, there is the question of what is better both for the individual and the employer.
One other point. Were some of the alternative paths I suggest to materialize and were the employers to express seriously that they care about the life skills, then the Bioengineering Curriculum would almost surely be redesigned to deliver at least some of that internally. The Accounting folks have a lot of communication skill development in their courses because the employers have said that is what they value in the graduates we produce. So you might also think about within curriculum changes that might be possible to foster such development
On your comment about "Obviously life skills are important, but they can be developed through other avenues than class (i.e. experiential learning)", do you think you or other people in your major have time for these other avenues? Does your college give you suggestions on how to develop these other skills? Do you get most of these "life skills" from internships?
ReplyDelete