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It isn't well known in tech partly because it doesn't have a very strong engineering focus. While other departments are seeing incredible growth and development

It isn't well known in tech partly because it doesn't have a very strong engineering focus. While other departments are seeing incredible growth and development, the school of engineering is relatively quiet. It simply hasn't been a priority when huge grants for health and biomedical sciences are ripe for the picking. There was a good entrepreneurial bent at the school, but in remarkably traditional industries like retail and small-scale supply chaining. I would love to see more tech innovation focus at the school. Might make me more willing to read those alum letters.

srunni 14y ago
> While other departments are seeing incredible growth and development, the school of engineering is relatively quiet. It simply hasn't been a priority when huge grants for health and biomedical sciences are ripe for the picking. It also doesn't help that the Department of Biomedical Engineering has been growing like crazy, both at the graduate and undergraduate levels - the Spring 2012 (undergraduate) graduating class sizes for each department in the School of Engineering were as follows: Biomedical Engineering: 100 Computer Science & Engineering: 35 Electrical Engineering: 18 Systems Science & Engineering: 23 Chemical Engineering: 32 Civil Engineering: 3 Chemical Engineering: 56 Information Management: 3 Interest in biomedical (and, to a lesser degree, chemical) engineering simply outstrips interest in any other engineering discipline (and interest is still growing - the graduating class size of 2016 will probably be at least 150 for biomedical), and the School of Engineering doesn't want to fix something that isn't broken. There's nothing wrong with biomedical engineering, but if other departments, such as CS or EE, want to grow, they'll have to take the initiative on their own, because the School of Engineering as a whole is happy with the way things are trending right now.
- vnchr 14y ago
  Actually, I've met recently with the Dean of Engineering about encouraging more entrepreneurship from undergrad engineering students. It's a top priority and there will be related initiatives coming in the fall. Biomed is so popular because so many students go to WashU for undergrad to be premed and then switch to other majors later--biomed being the best premed choice of the engineering disciplines.
  - srunni 14y ago
    > Biomed is so popular because so many students go to WashU for undergrad to be premed and then switch to other majors later--biomed being the best premed choice of the engineering disciplines. Undoubtedly, many students who are initially in biomedical engineering switch to other majors. However, the data I posted above was the graduating class sizes. So even after all those people who switch to other majors have left, biomedical engineering has a plurality of students.
- deleted 14y ago
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srunni 14y ago

> While other departments are seeing incredible growth and development, the school of engineering is relatively quiet. It simply hasn't been a priority when huge grants for health and biomedical sciences are ripe for the picking. It also doesn't help that the Department of Biomedical Engineering has been growing like crazy, both at the graduate and undergraduate levels - the Spring 2012 (undergraduate) graduating class sizes for each department in the School of Engineering were as follows: Biomedical Engineering: 100 Computer Science & Engineering: 35 Electrical Engineering: 18 Systems Science & Engineering: 23 Chemical Engineering: 32 Civil Engineering: 3 Chemical Engineering: 56 Information Management: 3 Interest in biomedical (and, to a lesser degree, chemical) engineering simply outstrips interest in any other engineering discipline (and interest is still growing - the graduating class size of 2016 will probably be at least 150 for biomedical), and the School of Engineering doesn't want to fix something that isn't broken. There's nothing wrong with biomedical engineering, but if other departments, such as CS or EE, want to grow, they'll have to take the initiative on their own, because the School of Engineering as a whole is happy with the way things are trending right now.

vnchr 14y ago
Actually, I've met recently with the Dean of Engineering about encouraging more entrepreneurship from undergrad engineering students. It's a top priority and there will be related initiatives coming in the fall. Biomed is so popular because so many students go to WashU for undergrad to be premed and then switch to other majors later--biomed being the best premed choice of the engineering disciplines.
- srunni 14y ago
  > Biomed is so popular because so many students go to WashU for undergrad to be premed and then switch to other majors later--biomed being the best premed choice of the engineering disciplines. Undoubtedly, many students who are initially in biomedical engineering switch to other majors. However, the data I posted above was the graduating class sizes. So even after all those people who switch to other majors have left, biomedical engineering has a plurality of students.
deleted 14y ago
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