I watched my friends in Mechanical Engineering work with computer science majors this past semester, working out ideas on a whiteboard that none of them could have done on their own. The mechanical engineering major knew about materials. The computer science major knew about algorithms. Together, they were working on something that none of them could do individually. This is how innovation happens in the real world.
Meanwhile, in the Biomedical Engineering department, we were told to stick to our own lane.
Now that I have finished Senior Design, I want to ask a question that needs to be answered honestly: why does the Biomedical Engineering department at Stevens Institute of Technology believe that collaboration is a threat to their students?
The faculty in this department are top-notch. They are approachable, knowledgeable, and care about their students. I mean this in all sincerity. However, the structure that they are forced to work under is failing their students, and pretending that it is not does a disservice to every single student who will come through that department in the coming years.
The reasoning that we are given is that if we work with mechanical engineers or electrical engineers or computer science majors, those majors will do all the work and we will learn nothing. Therefore, we must work alone.
I want to explain why this is not true.
First, it assumes that we, as biomedical engineers, are not capable of holding our own in a conversation with our peers. That is not a message of confidence; that is a message of limitation on our potential before we have ever graduated from the program. Second, it assumes that the way that people learn is not the way that it actually works. If I have trouble explaining a physiological constraint to an electrical engineer, I will have learned more about the constraint. If a computer scientist shows me a better way to process biosignals, I will have learned something new that I would not have learned otherwise. The more people you have working with you, the more you will learn. At Johns Hopkins University, which has one of the premier BME programs in the country, the Design Team program has as one of their principles the idea of interdisciplinary collaboration. The students here work with clinical mentors and business school faculty and students from all disciplines. The results of this program have been impressive: over 250 medical device projects completed, 40 provisional patents filed, and 16 companies started. The students at this university are not being cheated out of the ability to learn. They are being prepared to succeed. At Stevens, we are being prepared to succeed as individuals. We are not being prepared for the way the healthcare system works. We are not being prepared for the way the business world works. We are not being prepared for the way the world works.
The department points to the fact that we have won competitions as validation for our program. BME teams win competitions frequently. Faculty members tout this as a validation of our program.
But we have to ask the hard questions: what have we won, and whom have we competed against?
When the BME project, which involves a medical device, is pitted against a purely mechanical engineering project, the playing field is not level. Medical projects have inherent appeal to judges. They save lives, they help people, and they touch the judges emotionally. This is not a criticism of judges, but a reality that puts BME projects in a favorable position regardless of their actual innovative merit.
The answer is not to become even more isolated. The answer is to fight for a system of competition that makes fair assessments of projects within each domain.
Medicine. Natural Sciences. Computer Science. Engineering. Create domains that allow for fair comparisons instead of throwing medical devices and gearboxes into a hat and calling it a fair fight.
Plus, we are given a $500 budget and are expected to spend it all within the first semester. This is not how engineering works. This is not how my Design Spine professors from freshman year to my junior year at Stevens taught me either.
Engineering is repetitive. You design something. You build it. You test it. You fail. You go back and redesign it. Sometimes you find out in March that the component you purchased in September is completely wrong for your application. Sometimes you find out in April that a different approach will yield better results. But if you are forced to spend your entire budget by October, you cannot change your approach because of it.
At the University of Illinois Chicago, the BME department works with students throughout the entire academic year and allows for this type of iterative purchasing as needs change and evolve. The budget is meant to serve the project, not the other way around.
We are given a list of pre-approved projects. Pick one and make it work. If you have your own idea, something that you are genuinely passionate about, you are expected to find your own sponsor and your own funding.
This is not how it should be.
At Rutgers, the BME department has been able to secure substantial grant funding aimed at supporting translational senior design projects. They are actively seeking ways to connect students with real-world problems and grant funding. At Stevens, we are handed a list and told to get started.
The fundamental difference is ownership. When students are able to work on ideas they are passionate about, they are motivated, engaged, and innovative. When students are forced to work on someone else’s ideas, they complete the task. Which approach do we think leads to better engineers?
The chemical biology department at Stevens begins the senior design process early in junior year. Students are encouraged to think of ideas, create proposals, and consider possibilities before they are
forced into the intense senior design experience. This is, of course, common sense. Good design requires time. Good ideas require time. Ideas don’t magically appear in September.
At the University of Kentucky, the BME curriculum includes design thinking courses throughout the four years. Students learn human anatomy for design as freshmen. Students learn computer-aided design, user experience, and design strategies before they are forced into the capstone design experience. By the time students are ready to begin their capstone, they have been learning design principles for years.
At Stevens, we are given eight semesters of design in name only, but the capstone experience itself is only offered over two semesters. This is not time to design. This is time to rush. This is time to learn how to rush, not time to learn how to engineer.
The restrictions we face are not neutral. They are limiting innovation.
When you can’t collaborate across departments, you miss out on expertise that could take your project to the next level. When you can’t pursue your ideas, you miss out on passion. When you have to spend money before you know what you need, you miss out on iteration. And when you start too late, you miss out on depth.
You end up with safe projects. Projects that are predictable. Projects that meet requirements but fail to innovate. Meanwhile, students at other schools are filing patents and starting businesses. They are working with clinical mentors and industry sponsors. They are learning not only how to implement a project they were handed but also how to identify problems worth solving.
This is meant as constructive criticism. The BME faculty at Stevens is actually exceptional. They show up. They provide feedback. They care. However, great people working under a poor framework can’t overcome it.
Remove the collaboration ban. Trust our students to take care of themselves. Allow student ideas for projects. Allow budgeting for deployment when it is actually needed. Start earlier. Teach proposal writing and idea development in junior year. Aggressively pursue industry-sponsored projects. Connect us with actual problems they are trying to solve.
I will be done with senior design. I have no stake in this. However, I’m writing this because students behind me deserve better than what we were given. They deserve an education that prepares them for what they’ll actually encounter. They deserve an education that prepares them for a world of interdisciplinary teams and iterative design and complex problems that don’t care about departmental boundaries. It is time our education caught up with reality.
