<p>I am planning on majoring in Anthropology and Biomedical Engineering and am also interested in Neuroscience and Film Studies. I’m looking for a college that has a nerdy environment that is similar to Harvey Mudd and CalTech’s. But, I also want to be able to take art classes in Film and Architecture. I really love the idea of having a student designed major or some kind of individualized study like Gallatin. And an open curriculum like Brown. I am also looking for a college with a strong sense of community that you see in Harvey Mudd or Linfield. Or the kind where Yale’s Undergrad housing creates. </p>
<p>I was wondering if someone could give me some suggestions of colleges that fulfill some or all of this criteria. Thank you!</p>
<p>Wesleyan. It has the strongest sciences of any LAC east of the Mississippi; has a similar sense of community; offers the same kind of curricular flexibility as Gallatin. It is often compared with Brown. And, Yale is about a half-hour away. :)</p>
<p>This might sound like out of the ordinary advice, but if you are a California resident, or even just want a fresh air and California beach atmosphere check out UCSB’s College of Creative Studies program. It is a very small, very prestigious (past Nobel laureates have come out of this program), very difficult to get into program that is basically like an LAC on the UCSB sun soaked campus right next to the beach. If you are admitted to the program you’ll literally be able to make your own major and take classes however you please as long as you pick a pretty broad concentration to focus on (bio, art, music, math, physics etc). Classes are specially taught by selected faculty in very small, personal settings.</p>
<p>Maybe. It has the highest level of research spending of any LAC (east or west of the river). It’s one of the few LACs to grant PhDs (only in 4 sciences, math, and ethnomusicology). However, for science/engineering PhD production per capita, it is surpassed by Swarthmore, Grinnell, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Oberlin, and Kalamazoo. The Philadelphia Quaker colleges (Haverford, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr) have the advantage of supporting cross-registrations through their consortium (which also includes UPenn), which presumably makes more science courses available than Wesleyan can offer.</p>
<p>Still, Wesleyan is the first school that came to my mind, for its strengths in both science and film.</p>
<p>i would suggest bucknell. A strong liberal arts college with a strong engineering program. Also, FYI it might be hard to make your own major combining an engineering major with something in liberal arts. You can do a double major, but engineering majors usually have strict and lots of requirements due to accreditation reqs (most engineering majors are professionally accredited programs)</p>
<p>Grinnell, Reed and Hampshire don’t offer biomedical engineering so it wouldn’t surprise me if other schools surpass them in engineering PhD production! Only a few LACs offer a general engineering major, like Swarthmore and Bucknell.</p>