While a lot of us feel that NJIT does not provide enough practical courses (and probably rightfully so), it is important to note that NJIT, as far as I know, does not notably lag behind other universities in this regard. Lack of practical courses, then, seems to be a failing of the educational system in general rather than a specific failure of NJIT. As many others have mentioned, a 70/30 ratio sounds like a significant improvement in regards to this issue. This will help alleviate the "test and forget" issue that, I would argue, dominates college lifestyle for the vast majority of students, and it will help them be better prepared for the workforce.

This problem, I must note, is not uniquely endemic to colleges. Rather, high schools too can benefit from a restructuring of courses to allow students to experience more practical learning,

In my opinion, I don’t think 70:30 is a good ratio of academic courses versus practical courses. Academic courses are great in terms of getting a good understanding of the concept and processes used within medical devices. However, practical courses are important as it provides you an examples of real life industry problems. Without practical courses, it’s really challenging for an individual to perform well with only academic background. Additionally, in the BME field, it’s important to understand the design control and FDA regulations involved in medical devices. NJIT should have a 50:50 ratio of academic to practical classes. By having practical classes background, it will make an individual more successful in the medical device industry.

I believe that the 70:30 ratio is a little lopsided. The ideal ratio of informative to practical courses should be 50% informative and 50% practical. Among the most useful informative course taught at NJIT, the ones that feature labs are the most helpful. Of course learning theory and formulas is important, but seeing the practical application of these is critical. This also extends to courses like this one. While it is informative, the primary value of this course comes from how practical it is to working in the industry. Understanding a concept is fine, but seeing how it applies to real-life examples is a template for success when those real-life scenarios present themselves upon entering the workforce. The more "hands on" experience a student can get, whether this is through labs, research, or simulations, the better they will be prepared for life after school.

I was recently made aware of this ratio as I was attempting to create a schedule so that I would be able to take all 4 courses that you provide in my curriculum. I would disagree with the 3 to 7 ratio in practical courses vs informational courses because as stated above many of practical courses are filled with information we will utilize in industry and are the key concerns that employers have during interviews. Not only the medical device courses that are provided, but also courses that involved CAD design and programming I would also consider practical courses, while they may be a hybrid between the practical and informational these are courses that are directly going to be used in industry. If anything we should be allowed to take more of these practical courses and have a 50:50 mix between the two types. The main argument for having a more balanced ratio is that during undergraduate for engineering we are mainly taking about 80% technical courses that lay the foundation of engineering fundamentals and there should be a greater balance in a graduate program that is going to prepare you for industry.

I think that the answer to this question is highly dependent on the individual, depending on what they are looking to get out of their MS degree. For me personally, I think that a 50/50 ratio would be better, and that is because I am working in industry, and I am looking to gain knowledge that will help me perform better in my current job. I would say that I have taken several other BME courses (BME 678 and 679) that are also more "practical" courses, which I have found valuable for my career. However, since I do not have a BME background, I feel like I do need the other 50% of the course to strengthen my knowledge in biomechanics. I think NJIT should give students more freedom to choose what this ratio should be. Right now 30% practical is the maximum that a student could have, but I think this should be changed so that there are an equal number of practical and academic courses offered, giving students the option to take more practical courses.

I believe that its neither practical nor informational courses which by itself can provide sufficient knowledge. Its always a right balance between the two which can impart great skills into a student. For example if we do litmus test experiment in chemistry without understanding what are acid and what are bases and how they regulate chemical reaction its of no use even if you know how to carry the experiment. One other expect is its always easy to understand practicals if we have a theoretical background of it before performing the practical. So I think its not only practical or only theory that will make a course a perfect one which can readily be implemented by student in industry.

In order to achieve perfect balance between the two I think the length of the course should be increase or the course should be splitted in two semester where in in one semester basic theory and practical implication can be covered and in the advance course it should be more assignments and knowledge from industrial point of view. If the course is not big enough which can not be splitted into basic and advance one other way is if university can bring in or if it can create more opportunities for internship or Co-op. Its also possible if professor gives assignment which are from industrial point of view or of industrial level than also our target of student ready to work in industry can be obtained efficiently.

As I enter my second Year I must agree with kak33 and a few others about receiving proper preparation for industry. however i believe it depends on what part of the industry you are interested in and whether your focus is on the functionality/structural design or material/drug synthesis side of BME. If your interested in an area such as QA, industry focused courses such as this one, are extremely important and should make up the majority of your coursework, especially if you already have an undergraduate background in BME(out of 10 courses - 6-7 practical:3-4 theory). However if you more materials focused, the theory is equally as important as the theory plays a major role in the innovation and creation of new and novel devices/drugs/interfaces(out of 10 courses - 3-5 practical:5-7 theory).

Therefore, I must also agree with Scott that there isn't really a right or wrong answer and it depends on the area of BME that you are pursuing. and also on that I consider the skill based courses to be practical knowledge as well, which makes NJIT's available Theory vs practical courses pretty diverse. I personal would like to see more manufacturing based practical courses as I am not familiar with any other than the BioMEMS one.

I believe the ratio of 7:3 is perfect. One needs to have more academic knowledge as compared to practical knowledge. Experience teaches a lot. I strongly recommend knowledge over experience. Lets have an example: comparison between a person without knowledge with 7 years of experience and a person with knowledge with 0-1 year of experience. Both of them are working in a medical device company. They are working over a project and due to some reasons it is stuck. Experienced guy will help in troubleshooting the problem with lack of information. Whereas knowledge guy will help be more efficient and faster in terms of what exactly caused the issue in the project. I have been working in a Health care company where experience and knowledge plays vast role. Experience fails at one or the other stage but knowledge does not.

I would love to hear more about this from people who agree or disagree with my statement.

Can we choose the ratio ourselves, based on what we want to achieve after finishing our education?
I agree with the point that a good base of knowledge is crucial (according to ppp23) and I also agree with bb254 that the current 70/30 ration doesn't provide enough "real-world" knowledge for a student entering the industrial workforce. Because we all have different opinions and different goals, can the students choose the path that they want to follow: industry vs. academia and the ratio can be catered to those choices. Furthermore,choices and career path may change throughout one's lifetime career. Therefore, courses that incorporate a few skills/tools such as time-management, discipline, how to handle stress ...are useful in every world.

It is very important to take both practical and academic courses during your college career. During undergrad, there is so much emphasis put in to academic course because there is a lot of material to learn. It does seem repetitive after some time with certain courses, but each course goes into more detail of different aspects in the topic. However, I do feel that when it comes to actually working, it is important to have more practical courses. The practical courses will give you the opportunity to learn how to apply what you learned into your work. With just academic courses, we go into the working world kind of blindsided cause in the classes we just learn about subject. With practical courses, there is the chance to take what we learn and put it into experience. The current ratio for practical versus academic classes is not a good one. There should be more practical courses provided in the curriculum. This way we will be able to understand how to use what we learn when working. In addition, a more balanced set of courses will give students the opportunity to gain a better idea of the career path they want.

I believe academic and practical classes ratio should be 50:50. Knowing the basic required knowledge on a subject is as important as knowing where and how it is applied. Industry demands more practical knowledge than theoretical knowledge. But the base for practical knowledge do come from theoretical or information knowledge. Real world experience is completely different from what we actually study in information classes. Hence there should be a balance between academic and practical classes to bridge between ideal theoretical and real world practical knowledge.

The objective of MS in BME is to identify the direction, fine tune skills and apply them to solve real-world problems. With 70% academic courses, still, there is a long list of courses to choose from ( identifying the direction also matters to hone your skill set). This sets up the foundation for the knowledge base and helps us to apply these skills in real life scenarios. Although, informational courses gives guidelines that can be effective in an industrial setup, first-hand experience in these lines are also necessary ( such as internships and co-ops). Increasing the percentage of practical experience, the situation gets worse. The idea of compromising on knowledge in order to apply in the real world may be counterproductive. Hence, I believe that with more empphasis in academics, 70% academics and 30% informational courses strikes the right balance.

I believe that there should be more practical courses for doing masters degree because throughout our undergraduate studies, almost every single one of our classes we take as a biomedical engineer are academic based. We do not have practical classes as an undergrad except for our capstone class which is where we get to develop and build or improve an existing medical device. We get to take whatever we have learned in the first three years of undergrad to create a medical device while still taking more academic classes during our senior year. Since we have four years in total for academics, I feel that our MS classes should be maybe 70% practical and 30% academics if not 100%. Practical classes allows us to use our knowledge from academics and apply it to the practical classes. Also practical classes lets students be more prepared for the industry. They need to be exposed to the different job opportunities and let us see what we like. College should be preparing us for the real world and what to expect with our job roles.

I think the right proportion of practical VS academic course should be approximately 60:30. After graduating in May with my BS in biomedical engineering from NJIT, while I had the academic classes completed I still had a very little idea of what BMEs were about to actually do in industry. Yes, academic classes are important, but I feel that NJIT needs to redo there undergraduate BME course curriculum to include more practical/ hand-on experience based courses that offer the student experience in a select areas of a potential BME job. I believe that during my undergrad there were only 2 practical courses that I completed one in my freshman year and one during the senior year- Freshman Seminar and Senior Capstone. The majority of what I know about medical device development and working on a team came from these two courses because of the great hands on experience I received. In the courses that allow the students to work hands on and aren’t all about memorizing and spitting back information the students will thrive in and take the most information from that course with them into their careers. This is why I propose that the BME department should make the BME program 5 years long. The 4 & 5th year would strictly focus on courses that are practical and offer students a chance to really get a feel for what is out there in industry after college. This can easily be completed by removing some of the pointless electives we need to take during undergrad.