Due to the budget cuts that have distressed every department at Cal Poly, the biomedical engineering department has faced personnel cutbacks that threaten the department’s viability, affecting its day-to-day operations.
However, the student Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) plans to be the driving force in picking up the slack and doing much of the department’s day-to-day chores, such as providing student advisement for classes and widening internship and job opportunities for students. The student group will also help coordinate the department’s Week of Welcome activities for incoming students.
In the past, many of these duties fell to the department’s clerical staff and faculty.
“This year, I am hoping for BMES to be 100 percent different from previous years,” said new BMES president Bobby Nijjar, a senior in the department.
With its new expanded duties, Nijjar is hoping that this year will produce a student club that “will run in order to help students with the curriculum, in order for them to be more successful overall in biomedical engineering.”
The department’s faculty seems to agree.
“This year BMES is very open and transparent,” professor David Clague said. “All the faculty feel that they have the freedom to offer what they feel is important. I really like transparency.”
In comparison to previous years, though it cannot be definitively linked to the new way things are run, “more faculty are involved and there has been a lot more participation. There is a sense that people need more help getting a job and BMES does that,” Clague said.
Nijjar and the other student officers set up this year’s program to meet three specific criteria: offer a diverse industry relation, promote student academia and improve social interactions within the biomedical engineering department. “I have fresh ideas and an approach that is not as conventional as previous years,” Nijjar said.
Sixty percent of the job of BMES is to help the department by lessening their load by advising students about classes, the biomedical engineering department and any questions about student life here at Cal Poly,” Nijjar said.
“The other 40 percent of the time is spent on helping the student, whether it be helping students get internships, make connections within the industry and provide a helpful tutoring program.”
Clague said that the club is good for students as well.
“The club allows students to build networks with the industry and it is a shared goal with the biomedical engineering department to assist our student by pairing them with an upperclassman tutor,” he said.
Students are looking forward to the student club’s expanded role.
“I hope that BMES will give me a better understanding of biomedical engineering, give me the opportunity to connect with other students and faculty of that major and to have a better understanding oh how to get a career in this field,” biomedical engineering freshman Ryan Phife said.
BMES hopes that possibility of social interactions between students and teachers will further help the department run more smoothly.
And the BMES has been known as an important component to the biomedical engineering society because it offers to help department.
“They help us host information sessions with companies to educate students almost every quarter. They are an equal or greater part of Week Of Welcome and they actually plan everything and it’s a huge help to an already short-handed staff,” Clague said.
“The beauty of (biomedical engineering) is that it is so diverse with so many opportunities. Biomed is always going to be there and there will never be a shortage for their expertise,” Nijjar added.
Nijjar is determined to make BMES comparable and as opportunity-filled as the new department.
“My favorite part of my major is the idea that I can help people with what I do. I might be able to create something that could help change someone’s life,” Phife said.