Is a Biochemistry Major Sufficient for Graduate Studies in Bioengineering?

[kingdomof]

I'm a Biochemistry major at the moment, as my school doesn't offer Bioengineering. My main interests lie in Neural Engineering for graduate school, as my research experience in undergrad has been mainly Neuroscience based. Will I get equal consideration for programs in Bioengineering if I didn't receive an undergraduate degree in it? I'm wanting to do a Math minor as well along with taking some intro to Engineering courses at my college. Any advice?

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Interdisciplinary biomedical graduate programs tend to accept students from all different types of disciplines (I'm in a biophysics program. About half are physics graduates and the rest are mostly chemists and biologists). However, you can always look up some bioengineering grad programs that interest you and contact them to see what they have to say.

I think minoring in math and taking engineering courses would be useful (especially if you mention that you have done so in your personal statement when applying to grad school). Regardless of whether it helps your application or not, your goal should be to give yourself the necessary preparation to understand your graduate level bioengineering classes once you start grad school.

 

[kingdomof]

Well, that's quite assuring. Thank you for the advice.

 

[nikkilou]

I had a summer reu in BioEng at Clemson University and believe Biochemistry with a math minor would have prepared me well for the research I did and saw being done by the graduate students. I cannot verify your preparation for classes, but typically there are research labs that emphasize heavily on chemistry and others that focus heavily on biology. A math minor is a good idea, but it may be more important to take a class on molecular biology than in engineering.