The Biomedical Forensics Program at Boston University

Boston University is one of the most well known (and expensive) colleges in the country. It is comprised of two campuses: the Charles River Campus (or the main campus as we are told NOT to call it), and the Medical school campus located on Albany St. The medical campus also houses the dental school, school or public health, and the graduate medical sciences.

Within the past 4 years, the Graduate Medical Sciences program has created a Biomedical Forensics Masters Program ( M.S.) It is intended for people who are interested in getting into the field of forensic science. I am almost done with my first year in this program, so allow me to discuss it from the beginning.

To be accepted into the program, your GPA must be respectable ( above a 3.0 ), your GREs must be okay ( more weight on the science portion) and your recommendations should come from your science professors. The program is heavily female, and by heavily i mean at least 95% female. Most people are straight out of college while some are already in the field and are now returning to school to get a degree. It is a two year program with some courses offered in the summer, consisting of roughly 70 people total in the program.

The program consists of eight "core" classes required by everyone: Criminal Law 1 and 2, Forensic Pathology, Forensic Chemistry, Forensic Biology, Trace Evidence Analysis, DNA Analysis, and Crime Scene Investigation. Two labs must be taken out of a choice of four including Instrumental analysis, DNA lab, Biology lab, and Trace Evidence lab. Four electives must be taken as well and electives can either be from the program or other approved courses from the graduate medical sciences ( ex. histology, anatomy). Some electives within the program include Homicide investigation, Pattern evidence, Firearms investigations, Medico-legal death investigation, and Forensic Anatomy just to name a few. A thesis is also required, but can be laboratory or library based.

The professors all have one very important thing in common: they have all worked in the field. What you can sometimes run into is professors who know all the theoretical but have never actually been in the field. All the professors in this program were chosen specifically because they have worked in the field of forensics in various capacities.

Although the program is great in theory, there are some major flaws. One is class offerings. As the size of those in the program grows, the number of classes does not, so people are either fighting for very few spots for required classes and have to wait a whole year to try again, or they have taken all the classes offered and there are no more classes to take while finishing their thesis. Registration is also done through email so there is some order, however emailing at 12:01 am to get the classes you want is a little ridiculous.

A major flaw is that there is no internship program. Although they do offer credit for internships, it is up to you to go find them and to do all the arrangements. An internship usually means a lab project, since interns are not usually allowed to work on actual cases. What is more frustrating is that there are very few, if not any, internships in forensics within Massachusetts, which leaves a lot of students with a degree and still no experience. We are also told that the MAIN way to get a job within this field is through internships. Hence the frustration.

My last problem is expense. For a program that costs over $18,000 per semester to be full time and no internship program is a little steep. Not only that, but most classes do not take up the full time allotment, meaning we leave early, sometimes a full hour early out of class. While some are psyched to go home early, I am upset every time because I am not paying exorbitant amounts of money to go home early and to have the same problem I had coming out of college: a degree with zero actual experience in the field.

I hope that this review has helped those interested in this program. I do like it overall, but I also believe it has growing pains that need to be fixed in order for this program to stay alive and productive.