What would happen if you took a nationally-ranked hospital system and school of medicine and combined it with one of the finest engineering programs in the nation? You would get the UNC/North Carolina State University Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, a unique partnership between the two universities that gives students access to a wealth of resources across both campuses.
“Biomedical Engineering is a wonderful program that has been at UNC for a long time,” said Sandy Henriquez, student services specialist for the department. “Basically if you look at any discipline in engineering — mechanical, civil, electrical — it is any of those applied to the body and medical applications.”
While the BME program has existed for many years, the partnership with NC State started in 2003 and the undergraduate degree was just accredited last year. Now students who are entered into the program will be counted as students of both UNC and NC State and will graduate with a degree from both universities.
“Students get IDs at the NC State campus, and like how students here have a PID, they get the NC State equivalent,” Henriquez said. “They can take classes at NC State if they want. Some of the specialized electives for Biomedical Engineering, because of our specialty and our faculty, are only offered at UNC or only offered at NC State.”
Even though some classes may only be offered at NC State, students will not be required to go to classes in Raleigh, Henriquez said. The curriculum and required courses are the same at both universities. This gives options for students that missed a chance to take a class only offered one semester on one campus by attending it on the other campus.
“It doubles the faculty that they have access to,” said Naji Husseini, a lecturer in the BME department. “They can do research with more faculty members, they can have access to some of the facilities on each campus. For example, UNC students, since there is no engineering school over here, could go to an engineering career fair at NC State and have access to all of those engineering people.”
The partnership is unique in that it is an equal sharing of resources and faculty between the two universities. Both schools take 80 students per class, allow complete facilities access, and allow for students to do research on their campus with their faculty.
“The whole joint program is very unusual in the country,” Husseini said. “There are some programs that claim to be joint, a common one is Georgia Tech and Emory University, but there is not really a 50/50 sharing. It’s like me sharing with my younger brother when I was growing up. He could have a gummy worm, and I would take the rest of them, but here it is a joint everything.”
George Edwards is a sophomore BME major who picked the major due to its uniqueness.
