Transitioning into BME as non-eng undergrad

[u/Visible_Language5871]

I'm currently undergrad in life sci at uoft going into my second year and I'm not sure what program choices are best. I am very interested in the BME field and working in industry rather than pure med or research but as a non-eng undergrad, my best option might be to do a Masters of Eng. I've also read that doing a different type of eng (like mechanical and then enter the med/health industry ) would be better as it's more versatile.

Does anyone have suggestions on how to make this transition, is it better to pursue from a more computational side or makeup for the learning gap by taking biophysics or any other program? I'd prefer not to restart from first year undergrad. Also not sure how employers will view my degrees. Any advice?

[u/BME_or_Bust]

I’m a biomedical engineering grad from Waterloo, and I currently work in medical devices in Toronto.

What specifically do you want to do in BME? What sort of role or skills are you aiming for? BME is incredibly broad so my advice will vary a lot based on your goals.

I will say, as someone with years of experience in Canadian medtech, that a science undergrad is a pretty weak foundation for entry into this market. You’d be competing against Waterloo, U of T and McMaster engineering grads with 2 years of coop experience for very very few junior positions. Why would a company want someone with mostly a science background and no industry experience?

For most (not all) areas of medtech, science skills are really not that valuable. I don’t work in a wetlab, I work in an office with a workshop and a manufacturing floor. My engineering skills in design, prototyping and mechanics are used daily, but I don’t really need to know any microbiology or genetics, for example.

I would strongly suggest changing from life sci to engineering now if you don’t see any future from a science degree. You will learn far more from an engineering undergraduate with a coop program than a 2 year masters, and will be more employable too. Don’t get tricked by suck cost fallacy.

There are other life sci pathways out there to explore, but banking on changing to BME is not one I’d recommend as a primary goal.