Anonymous91

Hey I am a rising senior and a prospective Rice applicant. Right now I'm considering chemistry as my major (I know there are many sub-fields of chemistry but you get the picture).

Can any current rice student comment about the strength of the chemistry department and research opportunities with professors? I did not get to visit campus yet, and would also be interested to know the state of the chemistry labs.

Thank you very much

BunnygirlLEH

I second this post! I'm applying to Rice as a chemistry major also

anxiousmom

When DS applied to Rice two years ago, we had a lovely long email back from one of the Rice Chem professor, talking about the support systems in place for students. (Somehow it ended up in the spam/bulk mailbox and almost got deleted without being read; luckily it was saved and read. Wouldn't wanted to have missed it! ) The chemistry facilities are excellent, and opportunities for research and internships abound. I think DS said something about having his own lab and hood space in the lab(?)
Remember, you apply to Rice as a person, not a major. You don't have to declare a major until end of sophomore year. You get accepted to the school, not to a department and you have lots of room to change your mind as you move through Rice. That's one of the wonderful things about it!

jon314

I'm a chem major, and I know that chemistry at Rice is both difficult, but full of good opportunities as well. Perhaps obviously, Rice has a bent towards nanotechnology in their department, which is a very cutting-edge field. Rice's chemistry seems to have an emphasis on non-biological chemistry, as there's no biochemistry requirement for the major. You'll have to do a lot of upper-level labs, as well as several difficult 2 semester course sets (General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Physical Chemistry). Each is difficult. Each is much more difficult than its predecessor. For Gen Chem, if you haven't AP-ed out of it, you can go ahead and take the non-Honors version--it won't hurt you at all. Hennessey is teaching it next semester, and she's pretty good (I liked her, and I'm having a class with her next semester as well). Unfortunately, you won't get Hutchinson (who's probably one of the top 5 or 10 profs at Rice), but that's all right. If you have AP-ed out of it, and you feel like your background in chemistry is good, go into Honors Organic Chemistry. You can take the regular version if you want, but be careful--it's a weed-out class for premeds.

As for research, it won't be hard to do. I personally haven't done any, but not because I can't. There are lots of professors, and you can ask any one of them. It's not a very formal process. I don't have anything to compare the chem labs to, but some of the labs are some of the best in the world. After all, you can't attract top-notch scientists to do Nobel Prize-caliber research without some very good equipment!

Hopefully that helps!

lehcar

^^
what's the difference between honors and non-honors courses? are the honors courses significantly harder or require more work? are most courses offered in both honors and non-honors versions?

Dorian_Mode

"Honors" courses would generally be taken by students who are majoring in that area of study or who at least have a very strong background in it. They tend to be very challenging, but also quite rewarding. As far as I'm aware, the only courses with honors versions are usually rather large, lower-level courses, like introductory physics and chemistry or organic chemistry. Anyway, don't stress too much about classes now, lehcar. You'll have time to worry about that during O-Week.

jon314

You won't ever be penalized for not taking an honors course. Honors courses are usually smaller courses that go in more depth than their larger counterparts. Thus, they're generally for people majoring in that field.

For example, if you wanted to avoid the pre-med rush of Organic Chemistry as a chem major, you would take the Honors version. Likewise, if you were a math major, but didn't want to go through the engineering-required courses of Multivariable and Differential Equations, you'd take Honors Calculus III and IV.

In general, the professors tend to be slightly better in the Honors courses (though that's not always true), the classes tend to have small limited sizes, and the material tends to be harder and more in depth. The courses that have Honors and non-Honors courses are generally introductory math and science courses that are generally required for all (or many) the engineering and science majors, so they tend to be very large. The ones that I know of are Honors Physics (though technically not labeled an "honors" course--PHYS 111 is an accelerated version of PHYS 101, the bigger class), Honors General Chemistry, Honors Calculus III and IV, Honors Organic Chemistry, and Honors Linear Algebra. I think that's all of them.

Does that help?

lehcar

yea that helps. thanks jon314 and Dorian Mode.

Antarius

there are a few more honors classes I think, some more Math

but if you like the subject, I would suggest an honors course. It has more potential for you to learn a little more due to the small class size. Assignments are more challenging as well