Undergraduate: Prospective Students – Distinctive Features
Creativity, Research, Design: Characteristics of Tulane's Undergraduate Program
Tulane's Department of Biomedical Engineering is one of the original BMEN departments in the United States (founded in 1977), and has been accredited continuously since 1981. Our program is therefore very mature, though we do make modifications as the field evolves. There are many distinctive features to our curriculum that make us one of the strongest departments in the nation. We have a philosophy of 'rigorous breadth' in this curriculum, which includes the following characteristics:
Distinctive features of Tulane's undergraduate curriculum:
- One full year of Anatomy and Physiology. In the first semester of the junior year, all students take a Human Anatomy course with a Gross Anatomy laboratory. The second semester is a Quantitative Physiology course that is taught by faculty from Tulane's School of Medicine
- Two and one-half years of Mathematics, culminating in the course "Mathematical Modeling and Analysis of Biological Systems"
- Junior-level "domain" courses in Biomaterials, Biomechanics, Cell-Tissue Engineering, Biotransport and Embedded Control Systems. Each student is required to complete two domain courses with a follow-up graduate-level course.
- Each student participates in a full one-year group design project to develop devices to aid individuals with disabilities in the New Orleans community.
- Each student participates in a full one-year individual research project with required thesis, where they conduct independent research in a laboratory either in the Biomedical Engineering Department, or with affiliated laboratories;
- Students who maintain a cumulative 3.4 GPA after their first semester of the senior year and have a suitable senior project are eligible to enroll in our 5th year MS program. This program allows students to complete a thesis Masters degree in their fifth year, and the tuition for the 5th year of study is only 35% of Tulane's graduate tuition.
