“I like that it’s small—there’s camaraderie,” says Henriques. “And it’s a lot easier to get help when you need it.”
But even though HDRB is larger than Biomedical Engineering, students still say they do not feel that the concentration has become so large as to become less personalized.
“[The professors] will meet with us anytime about anything,” Carter says. “They’re really willing to spend time with us.”
One issue raised by several newly-declared BME concentrators is a sense of confusion with regard to departmental advising.
“There’s lots of ‘okay, I’ll get back to you on that,’” Kiymaz says, adding that he believes the uncertainty “is just part of the new program process.”
Ainsley E. Faux ’13 echoed Kiymaz’s sentiments, especially regarding the advising process.
He says that it is unclear to him when BME concentrators will be assigned individual advisors.
“They were not really sure how things would go,” Faux says of administrators within the concentration.
SEAS Assistant Dean for Academic Programs Marie D. Dahleh writes in an e-mail that SEAS is planning on hiring “a dedicated adviser for [the Biomedical Engineering] concentration who will participate in the life science advising as well” in order to help address some of these confusions.
LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE
Both Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology and Biomedical Engineering have had relatively smooth introductions, according to students and faculty—and both concentrations remain open to student feedback.
“They are very receptive [to] things that we say,” says Carter of the HDRB faculty.
Kiymaz says he is “really excited” to take more technical classes in Biomedical Engineering, while Butler says he looks forward to “doing research you hear about in the news.”
These types of research opportunities might be part of the reason why HDRB has accumulated such a substantial student base so rapidly. But administrators involved with Biomedical Engineering are also looking to add such opportunities.
“We want to integrate more hands-on lab experience,” Howe says.
But despite the potential “tune-ups” the concentration will undergo, Howe says he feels that, overall, everything is going well.
“So far, so good,” he says.