With the increasing integration of computers to our daily lives as well as into the medical device and biomedical engineering discipline, should it be required from students in BME to take advanced coding techniques in different languages to keep up with the increasing digitalization of the engineering discipline?
I disagree with having a student take a coding course as a requirement for the biomedical degree as the program is already broad with its class type and may not give enough working knowledge for the student to find a job in a coding position post graduation. I think there should be a class that goes into more practical course information about the software to hardware interaction (BioRobotics at NJIT with professor Abbruzzese is a stand out course for this) that can be offered to students without being required. I also believe that if the student were more interested in this area, they would have tried a coding class within their school and pursue a dual major or minor if they thought that was the direction of their career.
I believe it would be beneficial to integrate greater software expertise in the BME curriculum. Currently, BME coding is limited to MATLAB, and while it is a fantastic software that has many research applications, I have found that I was limited in what I can create and the research I can pursue without the knowledge of more widely used coding languages. Since BME is lacking in software skills, many biomedical engineers are passed over for jobs for mechanical engineers that have both the mechanical and software expertise. Additionally, data science and robotics are the biggest and most profitable fields in the medical device industry now, and both require coding knowledge far greater than what is taught in BME.
@jaf22 I would have to agree with you there with more classes needing to be offered that have a practical application in hardware/software integration, with that Biorobotics course especially. A basic C# coding class should be required, however all of the in-depth coding courses should just at the most be offered without being a mandated required course. Because BME is so broad, and we might want to work in a Biomed department of a hospital, fixing their machines; this requires little to no programming knowledge at all. Or as a BME in the field of a warehouse that gets sent broken medical instruments or hospital machines to repair or upgrade, this also doesn't require much of any programming experience either. Another branch of BME that wouldn't utilize the application of programming experience would be in the field of business and marketing. However, if and only if we decide to pursue an IT job with our BME majors, then a coding background would not only be handy, but very necessary in that field.
With the increasing integration of computers to our daily lives as well as into the medical device and biomedical engineering discipline, should it be required from students in BME to take advanced coding techniques in different languages to keep up with the increasing digitalization of the engineering discipline?
I do not believe that it should be required. If a person in the BME field believe that this will be something usefully for them in the advancement of their career path in the future they are free to take that course. However, there maybe a larger number of individuals who do not need to learn this for their certain career path when they can be focusing on something else they may need.
@nm523njit-edu I totally agree that although MATLAB has tremendous research and data analytic applications, other software should be taught (Like, C++ Python Java etc...). As you mentioned, data science and robotics are two of the biggest emerging areas of the Biomedical space which demands higher levels of software knowledge that companies require for their employees. I think a great addition for BME's to learn, especially for the biomechanics/robotics area, would be to not just learn a wider array of programming languages, but also learn how to integrate this software with hardware components (Such as arduinos/raspberry Pi's). Knowing software is important, but knowing how to integrate that software in hardware and see physical results (Like a robot moving) would be incredibly beneficial as it can translate into skillsets used by many different positions within front-end R&D, like product development and test engineering. I think emphasizing software/hardware would help close the gap between BME's and Mechanical engineers in the field and be a real asset for BME programs to adopt for their students.
I do not think it should be required from students in Biomedical Engineers to take advanced coding techniques in different languages since it is not always applicable to Biomedical Engineering jobs. Biomedical Engineering curriculum often encompasses various different studies. Some of these studies prepare Biomedical Engineers for jobs in scientific laboratories and regulatory or quality divisions. In these fields it is not a requirement to understand advanced coding techniques, nor would it be applicable to such jobs. Additionally, a lot of Biomedical Engineers enter the medical field and even some attend medical school post graduation. In these examples of potential career paths for Biomedical Engineers advanced coding is not used. As such, I believe it would be more beneficial for these Biomedical Engineers to study a concept that would help them more in the sector they wish to enter post graduation. On the contrary, for Biomedical Engineers that wish to pursue a career in the biomechanics/robotics realm, as mentioned in previous posts I agree that it is very important for these Biomedical Engineers to understand advanced coding in different languages. Having this kind of knowledge would help give these Biomedical Engineers a competitive edge in the industry. In conclusion, I believe that advanced coding courses should not be a requirement for all Biomedical Engineers, but rather the requirement should be dependent on the career path and specialization the Biomedical Engineer chooses.
As someone who is trying to take advantage of this now, I do think it would be quite beneficial for schools to teach students basic computer languages they'll see a lot in industry or academia. I do not have much experience in programming languages, but I see a growing interest in those around me in computational biology, bioinformatics, data science, and data analysis. Some common languages I have also seen industry and academic employers ask for is basic understanding in Python, R, SQL, and few other useful software. I think with some level of skill in these kinds of languages, you'll be opening up students to a whole other aspect of the biotechnology industry, and other industries as well. I am personally learning to make myself more competitive when seeking jobs.
Upon reading the replies to the initial thread, it seems that there is a split response to this topic. I agree that MATLAB was offered as an initial coding course, but I feel that the best option would be for students to be able to choose whether they want to take additional coding courses depending on the specific area of biomedical engineering that they want to focus on. I believe that the best example for this would be someone who goes into the medical devices field to DESIGN devices, where tools like autocad and solidworks are more important than coding. Thus, someone who decides they want to go into computer design wouldn't necessary require a coding class. On the opposite side, there are biomedical engineering positions that do require coding of various languages, this is where I agree that an option to choose courses for additional coding languages would be very beneficial to many tracks of the biomedical engineering program. It comes down to preference of the specific track, but I believe its more important to learn the material that you will use for sure in the future!
I believe one core course should be dedicated to applying the software in biomedical engineering. Almost all BME subjects ranging from biomedical imaging, biomechanics, biosensors, or devices, require software techniques like data visualization, cloud, statistical methods, and cloud. A lot of machine learning and AI is also being applied in the biofield for better results, data handling, etc. Hence as a Biomed student, it is hard to learn all these things on your own or by joining some software course since we don't require that rigorous coding experience. People with hardware will also benefit since it will add more knowledge, and almost all significant devices ranging from digital BP apparatus to CT scans require software directly or indirectly. That's why I believe there should be a software course for BME focusing on data visualizations, machine learning, and such research-oriented tools rather than on core R, C++.
Based on my undergraduate experience, I believe that it is dependent on the BME student’s specialization on whether they should take advanced coding techniques in different languages. It should not be required for all BME students, but rather be offered as highly recommended elective choices for students. As mentioned by previous replies, MATLAB, although a viable option to introduce students to coding, is not applicable or widely used compared to other languages such as Python in industry. At NJIT, all BME students take only one introductory course that uses MATLAB. BME students should have the option to learn multiple languages, but at their own discretion and advisor recommendation. Although students specializing in biomechanics and bioinstrumentation could be better served taking at minimum two required courses (one introductory and one advanced) to further develop their coding skills. The introductory course may be more extensive to allow students to build better foundational knowledge. Across a majority of coding languages, there are basic fundamental programming concepts. Enforcing and strengthening these concepts will better prepare students to learn other languages. This can be done by developing advanced courses that build upon the foundational coding knowledge BME students attain through an introductory course. Such sequential programming courses would be more accessible to students who are beginners. Multiple courses, whether it is simply one in addition to the introductory or multiple additional courses, would only benefit students by reinforcing the programming concepts.
I've seen the trend for learning more and more coding languages as a result of being BME. My first two years focused only on MATLAB, and then exploded into learning C#, Python, G-Code, M-Code, ladder logic and even C++ for various projects and industry work, most of which I had to spend weeks on my own to learn and test. Other posts have argued that it can be dependent on the student's intendent goal from BME, such as Quality, but with AI developing further and further, we as individuals should increase the skillset from what can be automated to what can automate things. I'd argue thus, that learning languages frequently utilized in the industry would not be a determent, and in fact allow flexibility to show employers that you can adapt to changing times. The other notion is that, like myself, I did not know what I wanted to do with BME, but having the ability to know that programing is where I could land has helped me tremendously filtering out other roles I don't want to be in, vs those I want to take courses to understand more. I've given my little brother the same advice to where you don't have to be an expert at coding but learning the ins-and outs can help you initiate dialogue and open fields when the time to apply comes.
Like many others, I agree that students in BME should be familiar with various coding languages. However, it also depends on the type of specialization that the student is pursuing that defines how advanced coding should that student know.
Typically, there are 3 routes a student can pursue with their degree in BME: biomechanics, biomaterials, and medical device engineering. For biomaterials, I would say that being familiar with MatLab is a good start when working with tissue engineering or any field related. That is because MatLab is user-friendly in a way that allows the user to pass various parameters to a project at hand to test the strength or efficacy of the project.
For biomechanics and medical device engineering, I would say that in addition to MatLab, other coding languages such as Python, Java, and maybe even C++ would be needed because of how industrialized these fields are. In other words, engineers in these fields would be working with various different products or machinery that are compatible with specific types of coding languages, and it would make the engineer's life easier if they were proficient in these languages.
In general, I also believe that high schools should make it necessary for students to take a coding language if they are pursuing a STEM career. That is because technology is rapidly advancing which requires its users and engineers to keep up with these changes and one way to do so is through coding as the first essential step.
Thank you for the introduction to medical device development! It's a fascinating field with unique challenges and opportunities. If anyone here is interested in delving deeper into the software aspect of medical device development, I recommend checking out this informative article by Cleveroad. It provides valuable insights into the software side of this important industry.
