I have a half-year internship experience in a hospital and 2 months internship experience in General Electric. I can assure you that these two internships are totally different, although hospitals and medical device companies need BME students.
My suggestion is based on my own internship experience, so it may not be applicable to all people, but it can be useful for some people. If some students prefer to work in hospitals, then I suggest that you learn more about engineering and exercise your hands-on ability in the learning process. Because most of the BME work in hospitals is based on the quality control of medical devices as the core of the work, such work requires staff to check and maintain the devices, so it needs to use engineering professional knowledge and strong hands-on ability.
If some students want to work in the Sales Department of the medical device company, because my internship experience was in the sales position, I suggest you study the business courses, which will help you understand the market faster and learn a variety of marketing methods to work as sales skills.
Thank you!
My advice is volunteer at a hospital, listen to podcast about medical devices and attend trade shows
https://soundcloud.com/medical-device-podcast
http://www.nebec.org/
I think the most important advice is to take an inventory of your objectives and your skills.
Then decide what contribution you would like to make in the healthcare industry.
Even after acquiring a job in the healthcare industry its easy to maintain a limited view regarding what impact your job contribution has on health outcomes of patients.
Therefore where pursuing job you can differentiate yourself in the following way.
Try to narrow the scope and focus of your research sufficiently to ascertain a tangible link between your skill set and aspirations to a tangible service needed in the industry.
I believe real life experiences in the industry, whether it be internships, co-ops, or even an entry-level job in quality control would even help a BME get a feel as to what they want to focus more into. I personally did not participate in any internships or co-ops during my undergrad but I did indulge myself into a paid research project with my professor after my undergrad. That experience opened up a few doors for me, but closed other several doors, the doors that I knew I would not be interested in. Even the slightest amount of involvement in the professional field will help you immensely, whether its in the industry or research. I would also emphasize that utilizing the most out of certain courses that use CAD or ANSYS or other programs that professionals use could help a lot. Something that I wish I had done differently in my undergrad is getting involved and I don't mean just internships and co-ops. I mean doing research in school, clubs, talking with professors, and getting professional experience related to my career.
My advice to biomedical engineering student is to network and to go for internship/co-op experience which will expose you to design controls. It is important to develop contacts in the industry in order to hear about opportunities that may not appear on a job site and to stick out from all of the other online applicants. It is also important to develop marketable on the job skills like design controls because that will save the company weeks of training you.
My advice, is never stop learning, always keep searching in the field to see what's going around (don't leave your self in the dark), even check what skills needed in each Job posted, examin yourself and work on how to make yourself worthy when the opportunity comes. Learn the basic soft skills, as it is needed everywhere. GPA does not make a lot of difference but make sure that at least never go below 3.0 you do not know what's going to happen and let plan B finishing higher education be in your hand.
I have not worked in industry but I have worked in several labs on campus and went to NJIT for undergrad. If I could go back, I would tell myself to be more amicable to trying new things and reaching out to people. I used to be really scared of rejection and this stopped me from reaching out and looking for laboratory positions. I regret not having reached out sooner since the more experience you can get in undergrad the better. I would also tell undergraduate students to be more accepting of their own failures. Low grades and poor experiments used to really hurt me. I would interpret them as personal flaws when in reality they were just indicators that something in my work process was not working. Having worked in laboratories for nearly five years now, I can say that failure should be expected and accepted and is in no way a sign that you are a bad researcher, student, or person. That being said, while failure should be expected you should work to improve. While in school, you have the wiggle room to fail and learn from your mistakes. I think it becomes a bit harder once you leave and enter the workforce.
I graduated about a year ago now and the main things that stuck out to me that I wish I knew are the following:
1. Out of all the math courses you will take as an engineer statistics is the most important!
2. Coops/internships are truly what get you in the door as well as having leadership roles. Companies love to know you have leadership and social skills.
3. While all the bio and mechanics courses are important, courses on regulations, risk management/analysis are very useful. Most of the skills I use were learned on the job however I do wish I knew more about risk mitigation/analysis prior to coming in.
4. Courses like Medical Device Development should be offered in undergrad as well. Knowing regulatory pathways and design controls is very important.
5. I also in general wish that we had more guidance on what kind of jobs we could apply for. I think this ties into how important internships are because they give you a better idea of what industry is like and where you see yourself going.
6. Work on your soft skills!
7. I am currently doing my Masters in BME and slightly wish I had waited maybe a year or two to decide what route I wanted to go in industry before I chose a BME MS. BME teaches you a little about everything so it would have been useful to choose something more specialized or explore an MBA as an option.
8. Having CAD or programming experience (even though limited) is valuable and can help you stand out
For those who have work experience in the medical device industry, what advice would you give to Biomedical Engineering students? What would you have wished you would have done differently as a student to help project your career?
For example, I would advise students to take courses which teaches you more about FDA regulations and to take advantage of co-op/ internship opportunities. Looking back at undergrad, I wish I put more focus on getting internship/ co-op experience than stressing out over academics because once you get exposure to the work environment it becomes easier to determine which career path you want to pursue.
I would recommend them to get hands-on experience as much as possible. I am not talking about internships. That would help too, but I am talking about engineering. Although it is called BIOMEDICAL its is also ENGINEER, not SCIENCE ONLY. Learn the circuits design as much as possible, learn programming languages as much as possible (artificial intelligence DSP, etc.), learn signal processing as much as possible (both digital and analog) and learn robotics (I believe it to be the future of engineering) as much as possible side yo other biomedical topics (I am not even mentining thermodinamics, phisics, math, etc. those topics are the CORES for engineering). When I was in undergrad, my TAs were worse than me in engineering labs, and there were labs that I taught them how to do and make sense of it. They just passed their classes is with maximum scores, but when it comes to practices, there are worse than a first-year student (at least some of them). If you want to go to the industry they want to know that you at least have the fundamentals to be able to get TRAINED. Nobody will teach you how to use a screwdriver or how to handle a board with electrical elements and microchips. Furthermore, if you don't like to do those stuff, I am afraid this is the wring major for you, and you should switch something comfortable or just plan to go to medical school after this.
I agree with this opinion. As an alumnus from NYIT, I was advised to get as many internships during undergrad as possible but sometimes it is highly unlikely to get one in the area of your interest. Once i graduated I hoped to get a job in a specific field and was not willing to take a job in any different areas but at a certain point you have to accept whatever you're being offered. My advise to BME students is to have an open mind to take on different kinds of internships/jobs outside of their interest because they might end up enjoying other fields more than they thought they would.
As someone who works in industry and has a clear idea of my long term academic and career goals, I encourage Biomedical Engineering Students to spend time researching the many opportunities and paths they can take after graduation. Rather than just googling local companies and common job roles as I did, I recommend creating flow diagrams that include prerequisites and potential “next step” opportunities for each path. While you may not come to a decision on your future plan, you will at least have a road map of the many opportunities to consider. This can be used to predict timelines, costs, and rewards involved with each decision.
As an undergraduate, biomedical engineering was definitely a huge learning experience for me regarding my path to figuring out what I would like to pursue as a career. My school had a heavy focus on research and that particularly was not my area of interest, but being in that environment pushed me to try it out. Upon trying it, it reaffirmed that research was not my area of interest, and I was fortunate enough to experience co-ops and internships in manufacturing and process development where I gained exposure to device development projects and how regulated the medical device industry is. This opened a whole new perspective to biomedical engineering that I would not have been exposed to through my coursework or research opportunities.
So my advice for anyone pursuing BME is to try out many things and follow what you enjoy. There may be moments or experiences that you feel may not be right for you, but eventually, everything you experience will add to your skills and knowledge and it is up to you to tell that story when applying for jobs or opportunities that you are interested in. I would also tell any student to focus on their studies but try not to stress too much and try to enjoy the undergraduate years as well.
In agreeance with a lot of people who have posted here, experience is everything, especially when it comes to FDA regulations and guidelines, design controls, and process validation. When I was a junior in college, I had been working for my father's water purification business as a project engineer for three or four years. It was a small business, so I got to do a lot of engineering work and become familiar with industry very early. For this reason, I did not think I would need an internship in the medical device field, but when I went to apply for jobs as a soon to be graduate, I was looked over for a lot of positions because I did not have any design control experience or experience with the FDA. I decided to go back for my masters and got an Co-Op for the company I am currently working for full time.
Looking back now, I would have tried to get into the field as soon as possible by doing a Co-Op my Junior and Senior year. I would have also tried to network more rather than relying on the experience I was showing in my resume. You can open a lot of doors in any industry just because you know the right person. I strongly urge any students who have not done these to start as soon as possible. In this industry experience and networking are the two most valuable things you can have, and if you don't start early you will miss out on a lot of great opportunities.
@herreravanessa This definitely resonated with my experience as an undergraduate student in BME. Its really important to try as many different experiences as possible, especially in a 'jack of all trades, master of none' type of degree like BME. There are so many different career options and I think that most BME students start out with a vary narrow perception of what BME is. Starting out, I had no idea that Biomedical engineers could work in Marketing, Procurement, or do more than research. In my freshman year in BME, I was told it was too early to go into research or go to the career fair, and I would strongly suggest otherwise. Freshman and sophomore year are the perfect time to 1) scope out different opportunities (specifically through school clubs, volunteering, research, and internships) and 2) establish your network. The easiest way to begin both of these is to reach out and keep constant contact with the BME advisors and mentors in the department. Having people with knowledge and connections who know you and understand your passion and goals can really push you forward and in the direction you need. To give the example of my own experience: Freshman year, I reached out to the BME advisor and asked if I could volunteer as a BME ambassador for NJIT open houses. Even though I was a freshman, she was impressed that I was interested and allowed me to join. Through my volunteering she really got to know me and we were able to talk about my goals. She recommended I speak with our BME pre-health advisor, and he eventually introduced me to my first PI to do research with. After I had some substantial experience in research, I was able to apply for internships and co-ops, and my advisor actually recommended me to one of the alumni hiring and got me my first job. Connections are important, but its really important to get out of your comfort zone and maintain a relationship where your goals are understood.
I agree with most of the comments above. However, I think the most important thing to find a job in the field of the biomedical engineering industry is to have strong connections and good communication skills with people. While I was in sophomore, I did an internship at the big electronic company. The most important thing I learned during this internship is that by connecting effectively with people, we can get into great jobs. During this internship, I met people from many different companies and made very good connections for the future.
Thanks!
While I do not have any work experience in the medical device industry, I wished that I would have become more involved in academic life. I had done my schoolwork, prepared for tests, and rinse-and-repeated, which were the bare essentials to me. What I wish I would have done was seek out any clubs/organizations to join or ask any professors if they were participating in research to see if I could help them out. This experience would have helped me gain experience as well as possibly help me focus on what I would want to do after obtaining my degree. The best advice I would give to anyone is to be more active and involved in the academic community. It might be overwhelming at first, but it will pay out in the end.
