I don't think that this a good ratio because students should be more prepared for the industry when they graduate and leave school. Academics is great and is a good bases for understanding the concepts of medical device, but learning theories and having the knowledge of it isn't enough. Without practical experience, you are basically being thrown into a job, not entirely applying what you learned in school, and focusing more on learning the way things work in the industry. It's almost like starting from scratch. For me at least, I think that this is what it would be like because I haven't had practical experience.

I believe that the current ratio between academics and practical courses needs to be re-evaluated and looked into possibly adding more practical courses. As a recent graduate in NJIT, my undergraduate courses consisted of mostly academics, I understand the purpose of academics is to gain an appreciation and understand the concept in order to communicate with fellow engineers and speak the same language. However, the few practical courses that I experienced, it taught me much more valuable information; such as teamwork, share ideas, applying hands on work, provide real world solutions to current industry problems. Having these skills and understanding how to interact in the real world is what students need. Experience is what will differentiate one from the other candidates when applying for a job in industry. A recent graduate learns more in the first year of their first industry job and gain a higher appreciation on what it takes to solve real world engineering problems. This is out of my experience upon completing my first year in the industry.

I believe the ratio should be at least 50/50 or with the practical aspect having a higher percentage. After graduating college I thought I had learned a lot; little did I know my learning was just about to begin. Even though your GPA might matter for your first job after that it seems it all comes down to experience. When searching for jobs or during interviews it is always comes down to how long you have been in a field and what areas you have worked in. I believe this shows how important practical courses are versus informational ones. At this stage of my career I would rather have my colleagues show me what they can to rather than tell me what they are capable of doing.

I think there needs to be a right balance of practical and informational courses in the curriculum. In any field, the requirement for informational courses would out-weigh the number of practical courses as we need a solid theoretical knowledge as a good base to excel at practical understanding.

On the other hand, there can also be a 50/50 ratio for practical and informational courses as a few subjects like instrumentation and medical imaging can be taken up as both an informational and practical courses or both.

I think that the 70/30 ratio is a good ratio. Since I am still an undergrad student, I believe that having a solid background and a strong understanding about your field should be more of a focus, like what NJIT is providing us; without that strong understanding practice won't mean anything. That does not lower the importance of practical classes, however, if I have a practical class where I have to operate a machine and I learned how to operate it by doing simple steps, that would be considered practice but a useless one if I don't have the understanding of why it works that way or what the purpose of each step is (from my mechanical point of view). I agree that GPA does not prove how well a student is, which is why students tend to prefer practical classes, however, having an okay GPA with more knowledge would be more helpful than increasing the number of practical classes. In my opinion, a strong foundation is the main focus after college with the few practical classes that give the students the feel of working in the industry but in this case it would be not just a routine of performing certain steps, it would be an application of the academics.

From what I have visualized, I have noticed that for some engineers they can have a great foundation in theory instead of the practical aspect of their given major. This can play a major role in obtaining a job because many industry positions require their applicants to have X number of years of experience, this is what differentiates you from the rest of the general pool of graduates from all over the world. Like many have said in this discussion thread, a balance between academics and practicality is very important when it comes to becoming an overall well rounded engineer.

The current academic to practical course ratio provided by NJIT is not beneficial to students entering the workforce. From personal experience, I found it shocking that my bachelor’s degree did not really prepare me for the medical industry. Only 3 courses out of my undergraduate degree were relatable to my workload as a working engineer. Last semester I took Dr.Simon’s project management course and it helped me understand the details of FDA regulations and design controls. Based off my experience I would suggest that NJIT should provide more practical courses rather than academic. It would behoove Biomedical Engineering Students to have 70% practical courses and 30% academic courses if they desire to work in the medical industry. By having more practical courses you will be able to understand the hierarchy of regulations and controls that medical device companies follow. It will make your work life much easier to understand compared to spending more time taking academic courses.

I never used theory version of my academia in my practical/industry life. So I always feel that I wasted a lot of money for something that was not beneficial to me. I highly feel that academia to practical ratio should be increased but then again I am thankful that someone who is in same boat as we student are, to understand that practical side of academia is immensely important and is providing atleast 3 classes out of 10 as practical. As Dr. Simon said, a person with just one year of experience is would know a lot about the "system" rather than just fresh out of school. For example: Right now the company I am working at, I make same amount of money with bachelor's degree and 4 years of experience as person with PhD with no experience. So certainly, more practical helps.

My answer would be it depends, and my answer stems from what you want to do with your career as an engineer. I believe that some engineering jobs require more technical (academic) knowledge, and for those types of jobs it is easier to learn the ins/outs of working in the industrial environment on the job. Other engineering jobs that are not very technical based it would be way more beneficial to have some industry knowledge / experience before graduating and looking for a job. What this pretty much means is you need to try and figure out what types of jobs you are interested in as soon as possible, this way you can tailor your degree to the field you plan to work in. I believe this course could be a good insight to help individuals who don’t have any industry experience to try and figure that out, and help them plan what types of courses they should take during the duration of their masters degree. With that being said, I think there should be more offerings of industry related type classes (like this one), students can have more options when trying to choose the most appropriate classes that they should take that are related to the job/field they want to work in. I do believe that during an engineering undergraduate degree the focus should be mainly academic oriented, all engineers should be able to understand technical problems, problem solve, and speak the language / communicate with other engineers. After you have gained the basic engineering knowledge from your undergrad your master degree can be utilized to develop more knowledge and skills for the specific field you would like to work in (like I mentioned above).

Coming from own personal experience, the amount of practical classes should be increased especially in the undergraduate programs. I agree the foundation needs to very strong in order to be successful. However, companies look for specific skill sets. Different tools, machines, or knowing certain softwares separate you from your entire graduating class. These kind of skills give you a much better chance of getting a job and maintaining that position. Since companies are enhancing existing technologies/devices, therefore having a good background knowledge about few of them will be really beneficial.

Secondly, coming out with a Bachelor's degree, I was not even aware of what kind of positions do biomedical engineers hold. Lot of the jobs portal's have very few positions that are actually named Biomedical Engineers whereas there could be many positions on there that could be suitable. Therefore, having prior knowledge of these practical aspects is imperative. The curriculum definitely needs some mending and a 60/40 ratio of theoretical to practical would surely help.

I think this is not an appropriate ratio because students need more exposure to the practical tools to succeed in the industry. Practical knowledge allows you to gain the specific techniques that become the tools of your trade. Practical knowledge leads to a deeper understanding of a concept through the act of doing and by gaining personal experience. It sits much closer to your actual daily work. Where theory is often taught in the ideal of a vacuum, the practical is learned through the reality of life. There are some things you can only learn through doing and experiencing.

I think that 70/30 may be a good ratio if a student chooses to take all 3 courses currently offered. As it stands right now I don't think these 3 practical courses are required in the MS program. I would like to see that change as they offer real world benefits that academic courses just don't offer. I also think that 3 courses may be enough in providing a student with the experience they need to work in industry jobs

Given the wide range of applications in biomedical engineering, I do see the need for a larger amount of academic/lab courses so I think a 70/30 ratio is sufficient as long as students take the maximum 30 percent.

I believe it ultimately depends on the student's goals whether or not they would prefer practical vs academic courses. One could infer that courses that teach more practical applications related to industry would better suit the student for a career within a company as opposed to a set of academic courses which better prepare the student for further academic advancement/career. However, such academic courses do have their place in industry depending on the department or area that the student wants to go into. For example, I believe that academic courses based on theory and textbook memorization can serve as a basis for PhD research related scientist roles within the industry - product development. Students with more academic course to practical (70/30) can be a good or bad ratio depending once again on what the student wants to do with their career. A student can have 100% academic courses and obtain a co-op or job within industry and work on up from there. It is possible. However, to be more fundamentally prepared and versatile from the gecko, the student should have a different ratio, possibly between (60/40) or (50/50). This would allow the student to get a more balanced mix of courses related to either advancement for a career in academia or industry.

I believe the current academic vs. practical ratio of courses provided by NJIT is the right balance. I think it is primarily important to have a strong academic background based on theoretical concepts of the disciplines studied which will then prepare students for application of these concepts in the industry. Secondarily, it is a huge plus that NJIT students are offered courses such as design controls for awareness of the quality system regulations. Companies have standard operating procedures on regulatory requirements and being familiar with requirements will definitely help get the first job and prepare for the overwhelming new employee orientation training and working on first project.