The capstone course in an intensive experience, taking students from needs finding through prototyping, testing, and presentation. The capstone course is only open to bioengineering seniors, is only offered one semester per year and not every year, and is not able to accommodate all 100+ students in each cohort. Hope to take the capstone, but make alternate plans.

Learn more about the capstone course

Most bioengineers do some extracurricular research before they graduate, with many becoming long-term lab members making significant research contributions. Joining a faculty laboratory as a volunteer is a great experience that give students insight into how open-ended research in the real world works. Credit for research through the BioE H194 or BioE 196 independent study courses will fulfill the design requirement. (Note- don't plan to get course credit when you first start volunteering in a lab!)

Read our advice about finding a lab

The classes on the Bioengineering Design Project or Research Courses list involve intensive project-based learning that fulfills the design project. Courses range from instrumentation and bioMEMS to synthetic biology and computational biology.