Brandeis vs. Binghamton vs. UDel Honors...?

B77
Sat, 17 Apr 2010 23:56:29 +0000

If you’re interested in excellent undergrad science-research opportunites within a small liberal arts school environment, Brandeis is the compelling choice. Brandeis is a unique combination of small LAC (about 3000 undergrads) and major research university. The Brandeis sciences faculty is excellent and committed to undergraduate education as well as cutting edge research and graduate education. It is the nurturing quality of that faculty and their mentoring that attracted and benefitted Rod MacKinnon, an undergraduate and a classmate of mine at Brandeis in the late 70’s. He returned after medical school to pursue post-doc studies there. In 2003 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Clearly, a nurturing, undergraduate-oriented atmosphere can may make the difference in a student’s future.

On a related note, Edward Witten, the Fields Medal winning Physicist (sometimes called “Einstein’s successor”) was an undergrad at Brandeis as well (a History major I believe) and went on to take his graduate training in physics at Princeton. Perhaps another example of how a small, nuturing undergraduate program can lead to great success in science.

If you haven’t seen it, you should watch the interview on the Brandeis website with Greg Petsko, Professor of Biochem, who left MIT to come to Brandeis. He discusses his reasons as to why he found Brandeis to be, in his words, “a better place” to teach and for his students to learn. Here’s a link to the “video tour” page which you may need to paste into your browser: [url=http://www.brandeis.edu/admissions/videotour/]Tour[/url]. Then, you may need to click through to the 'Meet Brandeisians" faculty interviews to find Petsko.

In terms of prestige and stimulating environment , Brandeis also is the easy choice. Brandeis is truly an amazing school. Its intellectual environment is comparable in many ways to its University Athletic Association sister school, U Chicago (perhaps no coincidence that the President of U Chicago is a Brandeis alum). Yet its students are down-to-earth, friendly and non-competitive with one another. FYI in a recent Forbes national college rankings survey, Brandeis was ranked 15th among research universities and 30th overall among all private univerities and LAC’s–a testament to its focus on undergraduate education. Larger schools, including some Ivies, were ranked much lower.

Despite its small size and relative youth, its alumni are very distinguished–to name just a few, and in addition to MacKinnon and Witten, 3-time Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Friedman of the NY Times, The Earth is Flat etc; Mitch Albom of Tuesday’s with Morrie (about his Brandeis professor), the Creators/Producers of Friends; actress Debra Messing; Robert FX Sillerman (billionaire businessman–currently owner of American Idol and Graceland), Jeff Lurie, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles and Christy Hefner, (former CEO of Playboy). Also, if you’re into theater/music/art or social justice it’s a very exciting place to be (Angela Davis, Abbie Hoffman, I could go on, are alums as well).

Forgive my enthusiasm as a Brandeis alum, but I loved! Good luck with your decision!