Hello, I’d like to ask if it is possible for a civil engineer to become a biomedical engineer?

I’m currently enrolled as a freshman in civil engineering. However, I dreamed on working in the medical field. I thought maybe, if I could, I would like to study both engineering and medicine. But, I’d like to gain experience first in civil engineering. Perhaps in the future, I might also pursue biomedical engineering. Would it be possible for a civil engineering to also work as a biomedical engineer? Or other traditional engineering fields would be a better field to study in connection with biomedical engineering?

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Priya Singha , University of Georgia

Answered Monday, June 4, 2018 at 10:17 AM

Hi Nikki,

This is a great question!
First off, I trained as a biotechnologist in my undergraduate school so I had to switch to biomedical engineering for my Ph.D. degree. But they were both pretty related since both had a background in biology and chemistry.
This is not from experience but understanding from my knowledge of the engineering fields it seems to me that mechanical engineering would be more suitable for switching to a biomedical engineering job/field career. It seems like a lot of companies do want to hire mechanical engineers since they have a background in designing medical devices, etc in softwares. Among the more common engineering fields, it looks like biomedical engineering jobs can hire people from electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering fields.

Thanks and best of luck to you!
Priya