Updated major offers students flexibility in exploring biological engineering courses
Updated major offers students flexibility in exploring biological engineering courses
The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering is updating one of its undergraduate majors to offer students greater flexibility in exploring biological engineering-focused courses.
Starting in August and effective for incoming students, the Bachelor of Science degree in chemical and biological engineering (CBEN) will be renamed biological engineering (BIEN).
Students currently enrolled in the CBEN program will complete the CBEN curriculum and receive a CBEN degree. There will be no changes to the chemical engineering major.
Changing the major’s name from CBEN to BIEN was prompted by years of feedback from students, alumni and employers, said Teaching Professor Wendy Young, the department’s associate chair for undergraduate education.
“For years, students and alumni have requested more and earlier biological engineering-focused courses in the CBEN curriculum,” she said.
The new degree will have a pre-med track for those who want to pursue medical school. It will also allow students to work in fields such as biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, tissue engineering, sustainable biofuels, vaccine development and more.
Leaving “chemical” in the degree name resulted in more accreditation requirements, limiting students’ flexibility in upper-level engineering courses.
The BIEN curriculum will keep core classes such as Material and Energy Balances, Fluids, Heat and Mass Transfer, Thermodynamics, Biokinetics, Biomaterials, Lab and Biodesign, Young noted.
"All of those courses are highly valued by employers," she said. “However, BIEN students will have more flexibility to choose high-level technical engineering electives of most interest to them."
The name change to BIEN will include the following curriculum changes:
- The Physics 2 and associated lab requirement will be removed. A new sophomore-level Fundamentals of Biotechnology course will be taken in lieu of those classes.
- Two chemical engineering-focused, upper-level core course requirements (Separations, Process Control) will be removed, allowing students to pick from a broader range of courses, including Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Drug Delivery, Tissue Engineering, Immuno Engineering, Protein Engineering, Polymer Engineering, Separations, Process Control and other courses.
- The two-semester senior capstone “design” sequence will be changed to “biodesign” to allow students to focus more on design of bio-focused processes, products and equipment using appropriate simulation software.
- New chemical engineering and biological engineering minors are being created.