This past weekend I attended the NSBE/SHPE Career Fair, as did many other RPI students. When I picked up the list of companies from the information table, much to my dismay I found only 13 companies listed for biomedical engineers. Three of those were Canisius College—Graduate Business Programs, Teach for America, and, surprisingly, Abercrombie & Fitch (I hoped this was a typo). Out of 139 companies, a whopping 9 percent were there for biomedical engineers. Subtract the companies listed above and you have yourself a miserable 5 percent representation. This might not seem like a large minority, but when compared to companies interested in electrical engineers, the difference is clear. There were 97 companies present at the career fair that were there to recruit for electrical engineers; that’s 70 percent.
In no way am I trying to discount the work that the members of NSBE and SHPE put into this Fall’s career fair. Everything seemed to run very smoothly. It was easy to navigate your way up and down the streets of Corporate Way and Resumé Place. As easy as it was to find a single table out of the hundreds in the Armory with the creatively named aisles, there were only a few tables for me to even seek out—some of which weren’t even worth my time looking for. Medtronic, a fantastic medical device company based in my home state of Minnesota, was only interested in recruiting graduating seniors for their clinical device program. Cyclics Corp., a plastics company based in Schenectady, N.Y., seemed to be confused when a biomedical engineer was stopping by their table. Teach for America, a program that places recent college graduates in areas of the United States where teachers are in need, was the last thing on my mind.
While there are many avenues to pursue when looking for an internship or co-op, the career fair should be one of the largest. This is RPI, a school that only two years ago opened a brand new $70 million Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies. With all of the buzz around campus about biotechnology, you would believe that RPI students would be of interest to recruit for that field.
In planning for the next career fair, I hope those who are behind contacting companies will consider this editorial. I can honestly say that I speak for many students in the biomedical engineering program here at RPI when I say find more companies in our field to attend the career fair. Greater diversity at the career fair is needed; biomedical engineers aren’t the only group of people that are underrepresented.
