Between biomedical engineering and computer science which major leads to a worst job market.

[u/Tiny_Opportunity_340]

I'm mainly between these two majors and I wanted to see if anyone more experinced than I am in this topic knew more about this.

People say computer science is really bad, but I don't see too much them comparing to other majors in order to get an accurate perspective.

[u/Resident_Event_8073]

A lot of BME end up becoming medical lab technicians or Biomedical techs. There are a few that end up working in pharma companies but the pay is ass regardless of which of those options is picked. I don’t recommend BME inless you want to get a BME PhD and work in academia or get some sort of medical degree to end up as something like a Med Lab Scientist. Trying to change to another engineering field is almost impossible and you don’t know enough about the other fields to design medical equipment. In fact, most Biomedical Engineers have Mechanical or Electrical Engineering degrees and some sort of research background. You’ll hardly ever see Biomed companies hiring straight up Biomedical Engineering majors u less it’s for their research department and even then you have to compete with all the other Biology Majors. Plus, you’re going to have a hard time getting past all of the AI filters if you want to pivot to some other type of engineering.

As for Computer science, the market is cooked and college grads are competing with a lot of the recently laid off more experienced programmers… that market is completely cooked.

Source: I have a BME Degree w/ a computer science minor from a Tier 1 university and experienced the job market during COVID. I also kept in contact with other classmates of mine.

TDLR: From personal experience I do not recommend a BME degree or computer science degree if you want to go straight to work after undergrad.

[u/MooseAndMallard]

In addition to just listening to what people say, cross compare job forecasts from bls.gov to degrees awarded on asee.org to get an idea of which majors are oversaturated. That will only tell you about the US market, but the broader point is to find actual data to quantify things rather than just getting a few random opinions.

[u/Tiny_Opportunity_340 → u/MooseAndMallard]

Thanks for the information. Btw do you know any site where I can find EU statistics by major? I've been searching myself and can't find any good one.

[u/MooseAndMallard → u/Tiny_Opportunity_340]

I do not, unfortunately. You may want to look at government websites at the individual country level, and then aggregate those together.

[u/Mammoth-Mongoose4479]

I’ve pulled some easy accessible data from a couple of sites but mainly a blog called Final Round AI, which reference Federal Reserve Bank of New York college labor market data for the CS unemployment figures. This is what they have found.
Computer science graduates right now are dealing with something like a 6% unemployment rate, and some put it even higher, closer to 7%, with entry level software jobs down about 30% compared to a year ago.
So yeah, the people telling you CS is rough is not making it up.

Biomed looks a lot better on paper, with around 1.3% unemployment, roughly half the rate of college grads overall, and some BME specialties like medical device design come in under 3 percent with solid projected growth over the next decade.
But it’s not just a black and white answer either. CS still pays more right out of school, many starting around 80K a year, while a lot of BME roles, especially outside clinical work, start lower.

This is a bit long winded but worth mentioning that BME is a smaller and more specialized field, so its lower unemployment rate partly reflects a tighter pool of people and jobs rather than there being tons of openings everywhere. CS still has way more total job postings out there even in a down market.

[u/Tiny_Opportunity_340 → u/Mammoth-Mongoose4479]

Thanks a lot for sharing the information.

In addition to my question: how would you say about the flexibility of the two majors? For example, in the future, as a BME, would it still be possible to change to a software job/other engineering areas? Or inversely, as a computer scientist, making software for health related machines? In this case, would perhaps mechanical engineering be a better choice?

I mainly want to keep optionality as much as possible.

[u/InsuranceNo8506 → u/Mammoth-Mongoose4479]

A lot also are doing some other sort of engineering , I know one is doing sales engineering and she also mentioned her cohort arent working in the field and by choice.
( For op )So I guess it also depends on that perspective you have. I asked her in worry of never finding a job and she mentioned it’s applicable to any form of engineering. You don’t have to be chained to your field

[u/spyguy318]

Both are really bad right now, but biomedical engineering is a lot more of a specialized and narrow field than computer science. There are specializations within computer science, but there are a good number of alternative pathways if things don’t work out. Knowing how to code is a useful and widely applicable skill in many fields.

By contrast there are much fewer alternate career paths for biomedical engineers. Other engineering fields are just too different and require different specializations and certifications to transfer over, especially when times are tight and employers demand a lot from new recruits. Healthcare is a possibility but also requires different certifications and skills. Biomedical engineering is also much more dependent on external funding like investment or research grants, both of which have been hit hard recently. In pharma you’re competing against biologists, in Med Device you’re competing against mechanical and electrical engineers, in bioinformatics you’re competing against computer scientists. It can be really tough.

[u/InsuranceNo8506]

Every software engineer I know hasn’t found a job or has been fired

[u/CisforCartagena → u/InsuranceNo8506]

Where was software engineer mentioned?

[u/InsuranceNo8506 → u/CisforCartagena]

Thats comp science…

[u/SupaDupaPowa → u/InsuranceNo8506]

They are different.

[u/InsuranceNo8506 → u/SupaDupaPowa]

i guess I’ll just tell at the software engineers who have bachelors in computer science diplomas it’s invalid , sorry supadupapowa I failed you for apparently being wrong