Freshmen engineering design students invented a head cradle so a 16-year-old with cerebral palsy has constant access to his computer-communication switch. (Large image)

The Department of Biomedical Engineering offers an ABET accredited bachelors of Science (B.S) degree in BME. The BME undergraduate degree program emphasizes engineering design in preparation for employment in biomedical industries and for graduate study. Novel aspects of the undergraduate program include design projects throughout the curriculum supervised by a faculty mentor and a committee of affiliated faculty, clinicians and biomedical industry professionals; industry cooperatives/internships; continuous advising; flexibility in engineering specialization areas; student involvement in program evaluation and improvement; and an option to complete an M.S. degree in just one year after the B.S. degree. The BME curriculum will also enable a student to prepare for medical school in four years.

The 4-year BME core curriculum is a total of 128 credits. At UW-Madison, new students admitted to the College of Engineering are assigned to the pre-engineering classification. All pre-engineering students take the same basic science and math courses and transfer into a degree-granting program as soon as they are eligible, usually in the first semester of the Sophomore year. Since space is limited, the admission criteria for BME is higher than the minimum required for other degree programs in the College of Engineering. The BME Program admits only outstanding students.

The design experience and close advising characterize the undergraduate program. Students take an advising/design project course every semester during the sophomore through senior years. Real-world biomedical engineering projects are selected by students from a client list proposed by faculty throughout the university, particularly from medicine and the life sciences, and by engineers in industries that are part of the BME Student Design Consortium. Groups of students interact with these clients throughout the semester. All groups are required to continuously refine the specifications for their projects and to build prototypes by the end of the semester. Each student team (typically six students) is assigned to an individual faculty member who serves as their advisor/consultant/mentor to guide them through design projects culminating in a capstone design of a real-world project that lasts up to three semesters and ends in the senior year. This novel approach gives the students an exceptionally balanced education by incorporating clinical and biomedical industry issues including human and animal study considerations, technical communications, FDA regulations, ethics, and intellectual property management. Students can elect to have optional coop experiences with local or national medical device manufacturers, hospitals, or laboratories.

Students transferring from other UW-Madison undergraduate programs or from outside of UW-Madison may need to make up course deficiencies. Consult Bonnie Schmidt in the Engineering General Resources Office (including pre-engineering), the Transfer Admissions Coordinator, about transfer credits.

Students successfully completing the BS degree, with an overall GPA of 3.0 or a GPA of 3.25 for the last 60 credits of the BS program, are eligible to apply for the 24-credit professional M.S. degree intended primarily for students who do not plan to pursue a Ph.D. degree. Those interested in obtaining a Ph.D. or those with BS degrees from other engineering disciplines take a 30-credit M.S. degree option.

The Biomedical Student Advisory Committee (BSAC) serves as the BME student-representative organization offering a chance for dynamic exchange of ideas and solutions between students and faculty. BSAC helps foster an environment where communication between instructors and students may occur freely outside of the traditional classroom experience. (Large image)