University of Waterloo added Biomedical Engineering as the 14th undergraduate Engineering program with its first admitted class of 45 students starting this 2014 Fall term. It is a direct-entry program just as any other Waterloo’s Engineering undergraduate program with designated load of courses (5~6 per term) and co-op (6 work terms) schedule. It is also a sign of extended effort from the establishment of the Center for Bioengineering and Biotechnology at UW in 2012.
Waterloo’s Biomedical Engineering program is yet to undergo the accreditation from the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) in order for its graduates to qualify to be licensed as Professional Engineers in Canada. However, you can relax – Waterloo Engineering has a good record of gaining accreditation of its recently opened programs such Software, Mechatronics, Management and Nanotechnology Engineering.
Goal: A Highly Interdisciplinary Program
Waterloo’s Biomedical engineering is truly an ambitious program. It is to train the students as ‘generalists’ who will be able to communicate and work with many disciplines including biochemistry, anatomy, molecular biology, materials, instrumentations, mechanical engineering to just name a few. In that sense, it makes much more sense when you find out that their curriculum is housed in the Department of Systems Design Engineering.
Graduates of Biomedical engineering will have the following expectations:
- Modeling and designing complex biomedical systems
- Interpreting data from biomedical experiments and works of professionals in the medical field.
- Communicating closely with the biomedical community to design new technologies towards the advancement of biology and medicine.
In biomedical science, professionals of a wide range form are teamed and the advances of their research heavily rely on their subject-matter contributions in different fields. Some possible professionals are engineers (chemical, mechanical, electrical), biologists, kinesiologists, pharmacists and medical doctors.
In light of this, Biomedical engineering draws instructors from many other engineering departments (Chemical, Electrical and Computer, Mechanical and Mechatronics), the Biology Department in the Faculty of Science, as well as Computer Science, Kinesiology, Pharmacy and Optometry & Vision Science and the Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience.
Curriculum
Followed by the core curriculum consisted of mandatory courses in each academic term, students can modify their academic course load to graduate as either a ‘generalist’ or ‘expertise’ in one of the following three main theme areas of concentrations.
1) Biomedical Signals
Studying medical imaging, biosignals, neuroscience and diagnostics from clinical measurements in the health industry. Examples include EEG, EKG, X-Ray and MRI.
2) Biomechanics
Topic examples: biofluid mechanics, tissue mechanics, musculoskeletal biomechanics, sports mechanics and rehabilitation
3) Biomedical Devices
Topic examples: implants, prosthesis, bio-mechatronics, design for the elderly and therapeutics.
Also, two areas of concentration that students may pursue are under development. Those are Neuroscience Concentration and Sports Engineering Concentration. These are a package of topics with specific interest.
Some Thoughts on Choosing a Specialized Undergraduate Program
There are some traditional engineering programs commonly with the longest history in many engineering schools such as Civil, Mechanical and Electrical. With the advancement of technology, many interdisciplinary approaches are introduced in solving problems and this gives rise to new careers.
As a collaborative effort between the educational institutions and industry, new careers are provoked as new undergraduate programs to train the future engineers the required skills and provide the necessary foundation. In such context, Mechatronics engineering is an example of our school’s recently opened programs. Mechatronics engineering teaches the design of mechanical system – which nowadays is in close junction with electronic computer control – thus making an intertwined curriculum between Mechanical engineering and E&CE very essential.
It is convincing that choosing an interdisciplinary program that is altered from the traditional programs would be a better plan for the future. However, due to such close proximity between the new and its ‘parent’ engineering programs, it is also questionable if it is fully justifiable to pursue a brand-new program while the traditional program will effectively provide all the necessary background. In fact, it is often that those traditional programs are more conventionally acknowledged.
Most high school students are among the age to explore career options and yet to make a major decision. Therefore, it is important to learn about what these specialized programs can offer in different aspects:
- The range of opportunities that Biomedical engineering can offer students to explore the in-depth knowledge from the parental branch of engineering is limited due to the selection of courses focusing on system-level applications regarding design concepts to medicine and biology. Depending on where one’s interest leads to and the unknown future job market of Biomedical field, graduates face difficulty customizing his/her career path towards other disciplines in the future.
- One might consider this program as a dual preparation for medical school and also to become an engineer. However, as much as Waterloo engineering programs are renowned to be very challenging, one should carefully self-examine his/her ultimate goal and capability.
Despite all these possible worries, there are aspects at which students will unmistakably benefit from choosing Biomedical engineering. Usually, new technologies in advanced level in engineering are the products of research work from academic and migrate to business – before it creates a new job market. In other words, pioneers in these fields usually come trained from academia by the work of research. Biomedical engineering is also a career field that one can specialize in by means of pursuing a graduate level program. However, specializing in Biomedical engineering within an Undergraduate program puts one ahead of the game by few years either in academia or industry.
At the beginning stage when the new field is just introduced as a promising future career domain, choosing either the brand-new program that is slightly altered and specialized or the traditional program that has a broader scope is not a life-changing decision. Once the new program takes the path of expanding its own branches, the parent programs will then lose its relevance.
Biomedical engineering was not firstly established by Waterloo engineering. Many other engineering schools in Canada and other countries already have a long history of Biomedical engineering program, which is an indication of promising career field. Currently, our school does not offer graduate level biomedical engineering degree. However, it is hopeful that many undergraduates will benefit from graduating from Biomedical engineering at UW and it will mature into a larger program.
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