KateM

I'm considering Pomona among my college options next fall, and I was wondering which departments are generally considered to be Pomona's strongest? Also, how is their psychology program?

arizonamom

I know that psychology is strong but they are loosing their clinical psych professor who I heard was amazing so that is disappointing for current and future students. There are great research opportunities at Pomona in psychology amd most students have presented in some form at conferences across the country. English is also quite good and I'm sure current students will be adding with a long list to this.

saasaa

I heard that Pomona recently opened a new building or something of that nature for Cognitive Science / Neuroscience / Linguistics. Is this true?

D.T.

That is right. Lincoln-Edmunds building was recently opened, and a lot of cog sci/linguistics research is being done. Pomona is also expanding its neuroscience program - a lot of my classmates are doing neuroscience.

saasaa

That's cool . Just another reason for me to go to Pomona (I want to major in Cog. Science)

treesnogger

English is undergoing some revamping at the moment. But, conveniently, where any department is lacking, you can always go to Scripps or HMC, etc.

chopsticks3092

Economics and Politics are two of the most popular majors, and both are very strong, diverse departments with lots of amazing profs.

brassmonkey

The new cog-sci/neuro facilities are amazing.

Even if you aren't thinking of majoring in neuro/cogsci/psych, definitely try to take a tour of Lincoln-Edmunds on admissions day.

D.T.

Yeah,

strong departments - econ, psych, ling/cog-sci, math (yes, math), and philosophy (all are classes I have taken so far)

We also have a environmental analysis department which is very popular, led by professor Hazlett (omg you have to take at least one of his classes, like Intro to EA) and we've also recently hired an environmental economist.

flowersunshine

Hey I'm deciding between Pomona and some bigger research schools (Duke, Cornell, WashU) and I want to study neuroscience. When I looked at Pomona's course catalog, it didn't seem like they had a whole lot of neurosci courses to offer in comparison to Duke and Cornell, and I'm worried that I would run out of courses to choose from. But you guys say they are expanding their neurosci program? How would you say it stacks up to Duke and the like?

arsenalsweep

Coming to Pomona, i really was expecting everyone to be an English major, and I was prleasantly suprised to find that there are a ton of science majors. Of all the sciences, I think chemistry is the strongest, with a bunch of top notch professors with interesting research (yes, getting into a research lab is really easy!).

midatl_dd

Flowersunshine – it's really hard to compare a science major at a research university to a small liberal arts college. You definitely can't compare them in terms of the number of offerings, which are going to be much greater at the research university.

Usually students at the small schools compensate by greater one-on-one contact with faculty and a much easier time participating in labs on research. Some might say they also learn the fundamentals better because the classes are so much smaller.

The only way to really tell is ask a student at each institution about their experience. It will definitely be different.

POMONACOLLEGEMAN

i would argue in favor of pomona in terms of research. at large universities, particularly ones with grad schools, it can be tough to land a good job as an undergrad. here, it's not that hard at all. I know people here who got jobs in neuro labs as FRESHMEN... can't beat that. plus, all the cool research ideas go to undergrads here whereas they might go to postdocs or grad students or whatever at larger schools.

POMONACOLLEGEMAN

also, a lot of neuro classes here are listed under the biology section, so don't let our course catalog fool you into thinking there arent a lot of neuro classes

projecthanspree

What do you mean the English program is going through revamping? I'm considering between Pomona and Northwestern for Eng next fall, I hope the Eng program isn't at Pomona!