The biomedical engineering student should first plan to become a good engineer, who then acquires a working understanding of the life sciences and terminology. Good communication skills are also important, because the biomedical engineer provides a vital link with professionals having medical, technical, and other backgrounds.
At the college level, the student usually selects engineering as a field of study, then chooses a discipline concentration within engineering. Many students continue their education in graduate school where they obtain valuable biomedical research experience at the Masters or Doctoral level. When entering the job market, the graduate should be able to point to well defined engineering skills for application to the biomedical field, with some project or in-the-field experience in biomedical engineering.