BME 4550

One of my favorite, if not my favorite class I have taken at UVA! If you enjoy learning independently you will definitely love this class and have lots of fun. We got to shadow in the neurology clinics at UVA to decide on our own which project we wanted to work on (in teams of 2 or 3). You will definitely get out what you put into this class though. It's kind of addictive, and I started to love our project so much that I didn't want to stop working on it. Being able to network with the guest speakers was a great experience. Definitely take this class, it will be worth it!

I think that if this class had actually been taught by Dr. Allen, it might have been a lot better. But it was basically taken by David Chen who, granted, has a lot of experience in business and entrepreneurship, but who I think was very out of touch with what students wanted to get out of the class. He brought in an excessive number of guest speakers that I didn't find very helpful, and more seemed to be David's way of showing off who he knows. While the guest speakers were interesting, they would have been much better suited to sit on a career panel or speak in a class that explored potential careers in engineering. They did not offer much support in our actual design process.
David also organized the class very chaoticly. We NEVER received a single grade, and I actually have no idea how the final grade will be determined. From week to week, we didn't really know what to expect. The beginning of the semester was pretty low key, class work involved doing some background reading or research, and presenters came in to discuss the FDA approval process, IP law, etc. However, after spring break, it seemed like David suddenly realized that the semester would end soon and we needed some deliverables, so he threw us into a 4-week long design process and expected a fleshed out concept in the end.... this resulted in excessive cutting of corners, significant stress for students, and lots of confusion. There was no time given for brainstorming and an iterative design process - basically, if you realized that your design wasn't really going to work, you were stuck. There just wasn't time to have that idea fail and to start over, which completely went against everything that we talked about at the beginning of the semester.
Here's the bottom line: This is a worthwhile class if you are interested in design and entrepreneurship for networking, if for nothing else. We did learn some interesting things, and the first half of the semester was pretty low stress. However, unless they restructure the class, don't expect to come in a work on a design project for a full semester - that's what a lot of students hoped for, and it didn't happen. I definitely recommend reaching out to both David and Dr. Allen, because communication is key. Don't be afraid to voice complaints or frustration, and definitely ask for help if you need it. Expect LOTS of group work. One thing that was really cool, and that made the class a lot better for me, was all of the observation opportunities that the class got in the hospital. However, looking back, I think that the class just didn't measure up to what I hoped it would be, which is really unfortunate because its a class with a lot of potential.

Great Class!

worthwhile class, lots to learn. very interesting.

This was definitely a worthwhile class for anyone in interested in engineering / product design and application. We got funds to produce a useful product, and then we wrote a grant (upwards of $20,000) at the end of class. Dr. Allen is really great too.

Great class. Had great deal to learn design aspect of biomedical engineering.

Great class, great environment, and teaches tons of into that is incredibly applicable to after graduation and/or undergraduate projects