<p>Chicago obviously has amazing social science and humanities departments. I also know that the natural sciences (particularly physics) are very good. How do they compare with econ and the other departments Chicago is really known for?</p>
<p>Haha, I want to unite you with the posters who knew about Chicago’s prominence in the sciences but wanted to know about our programs in humanities/social sciences.</p>
<p>We’re certainly not as famous for our natural sciences as we are for, say, sociology, physics, and economics, but, like any elite research U, you really can’t go wrong. We have a lot of science majors and a lot of research opportunities available for undergrads.</p>
<p>I would also say that as far as the prestige of our sociology and physics programs go, the prestige has more to do with the departments’ past innovations than anything else. And prestige-wise, econ is kind of in a class by itself, but it doesn’t mean that it’s Chicago’s best major.</p>
<p>Math, astrophysics / astronomy, and physics all rank amongst the best in the world. Chemistry, biology, geophysical sciences, and statistics are in the top ten in the country.
On a departmental level, Chicago does not afford the same science environment as MIT, Stanford or Cal Tech, but it is a close second for UG along with Princeton, Harvard and Berkeley. If you are looking to do a PhD program in natural sciences, it will provide you with both the right course level training and big name recommendation letters necessary to enter a solid program. Also, due to the top-heavy nature of the school where graduate students outnumber undergraduates 2:1, research opportunities are copious and not at all fought for. As a result, for the motivated student, you will find a tangible distinction between Chicago and schools where science is mostly seen as pre-med or pre-engineering prep route like Brown, Dartmouth, or top LAC’s, and to a lesser extent Penn and Northwestern. </p>
<p>Computer science is quite weak though, and is mostly utilized to provide elementary programming coursework for other fields (e.g. C++ for statistics majors), despite there being some solo majors.</p>
<p>Besides the classes, there are also an enormous number of resources and opportunities due to the fact that Chicago is a leading research institution. Work/research experience is one of the most valuable things you can have next to your undergrad degree. </p>
<p>Bio/Chem: You’ve got the hospitals/BSLC/Pritzker school of Medicine right on campus. I’m sure lab assistant positions are easy enough to find, if you go looking. I e-mailed my psych professor (and head of the dept.) Cacioppo asking him if there were any spots for willing, capable undergrad volunteers in any of the labs, and within a week I started working under Dr. Jean Decety in the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, running fMRI experiments and working on the experimental design. </p>
<p>Physics: I don’t really know, other than the fact that the major is infamously hard. We have a ton of history in the field (Fermi/self-sustaining nuclear reaction, Millikan’s oil-drop experiment, etc.) so there’s that aspect of it. We’re pretty famous for our contributions to the field, so I can only assume that there are good opportunities for students here.</p>
<p>Also, (and I don’t know how interested you are in this, but it’s definitely one of my favorite things about this school), we are one of the most prominent astrophysics/cosmology institutions in the world. Hubble, Chandrasekhar, Carl Sagan and too many others to count are all strongly affiliated with the university, we have an enormous stretch of astrophysics laboratories between the hospitals and Ratner, ownership of several telescopes, etc. UChicago staff are tapped for NASA projects all the time - my own astrophysics professor this year had to go to Chile for a week in the middle of the quarter to set up a high-res infared telescopic array (he delivered the lectures via satellite uplink). </p>
<p>Really, I think we’re not as known for our natural sciences simply because they have much less of a tangible effect on people’s lives than, say, economics (discounting things like the Manhattan project, obviously!).</p>
<p>I’m kind of rambling here because I have been studying nonstop for the last three days and I think I broke my brain.</p>
<p>Thanks for your responses! I know I’m interested in the sciences, but I have mainly been focused on chem because my bio and physics teachers sucked. I know I dont plan on majoring in comp sci, so it sounds like Chicago has basically everything I might want to do covered. Everything you guys have said has certainly been informative and has made me even more excited about the school.<br>
Jack4640-I hope your brain is okay.</p>
<p>gbh875 -
my son is a 3rd year chemistry concentrator, and is likely breaking his brain studying for a p-chem final. His prof’s have been good to excellent, and he is doing work in one of the research labs which is <em>completely</em> incomprehensible to me. He also has mentioned that the lab portions of the physics and bio courses have been very well orchestrated.</p>
<p>No other school can match Chicago in evolutionary biology, except Berkeley. [An</a> example](<a href=“http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE1D61330F93AA35757C0A967958260]An”>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE1D61330F93AA35757C0A967958260). Chicago is also well-known for its application of the sciences to other fields; for example, the OI did some extremely interesting archaeochemical research on tin smelting.</p>
<p>More science research: [Research</a> at Chicago](<a href=“http://research.uchicago.edu/highlights/]Research”>http://research.uchicago.edu/highlights/)</p>
<p>uchicagoalum,</p>
<p>I would disagree about the CS department being weak. Although it is almost useless to those who seek practical applications, it is one of the best A.I. programs in the country.</p>
<p>That said, the CS coursework is some of the hardest (if not the hardest) on campus. Even when compared to math/physics.</p>