Curriculum and Research at UMass- Amherst

I have gotten into the Commonwealth Honors College (CHC) at UMass- Amherst as a Freshman and have chosen a major in Physics. However, I have a few concerns that I hope someone could address.

  1. I took a look at the Physics courses UMass offers but I am quite disappointed. There is no rigor. General Relativity is not taught at all and Quantum Mechanics is taught only in the fourth year whereas in Reed, Pomona and other liberal arts colleges, GR is taught at the undergraduate level. At the CHC, are students provided the opportunity to take graduate level courses without any hassle, or are extra courses provided at the CHC itself?

  2. Is active research conducted at UMass? If so, at what level does research begin? Is it really research in the true sense of the word or is encouragement given to copying entire experiments from the Internet? Also, do undergraduates receive adequate time to engage in research?

  3. Is freedom of speech given priority in UMass? Apart from my academic pursuits, I plan to do a few shows of stand-up comedy. Also, is the college crowd generally liberal or conservative?

Thanks.

You could always do the 5 college consortium and see if those classes are offered at some of the other schools near UMass. Also, UMass is generally liberal.

To add to what Winter Said, there are three things that I can see at UMass that you will probably like.

-One, you will have access to the 5 college consortium, in addition to all the valuable resources at UMass itself. (Amherst college is the closest LAC to UMass and also the highest ranked)

-Secondly, the campus is on the up and up academically so I wouldn’t be surprises to see a good section of the CHC to have upwards of 2200/2300+ SAT’s. (Some of them turned down schools like Carnegie Mellon and MIT for financial reasons)

-Lastly, it’s a great value so you can save money for a graduate degree later. (Anywhere you can get accepted at least)

Additionally, to try answering your questions, I would take a good look at the student handbook for Physics majors. (https://www.physics.umass.edu/sites/physics/files/2012-2013_physics_majors_handbook.pdf)
It says that “For special circumstances, your advisor can authorize an alternate introductory sequence.” so I am guessing that as long as you took several math/physics AP’s in HS and got grades on them, as well as solid AP test scores, you should be able to skip a lot of the basic stuff in the curriculum and jump ahead.

Several of the Jr/Sr year courses on the professional/graduate school track look like they are up to scruff in my eyes.

E.G


PHYSICS 556 Nuclei and Elementary Particles

PHYSICS 558 Solid State Physics

PHYSICS 562 Advanced Electricity and Magnetism

PHYSICS 564 Advanced Introductory QM

PHYSICS 568 General Relativity


Additionally, here is a list of some of the advanced undergraduate/graduate courses offered.
(http://■■■■■■■.com/khjj443)

Lastly, UMass is not MIT, but it is what you make of it. I am sure that you should be able to find some chanllege at UMass, and if not then transferring to a top tier STEM school after saving money at UMass is another option. (Though most people end up loving UMass) To cap things off, every professor I have met so far in my department has obliged any request I have made to learn more or to take a more advanced class. As long as you have the motivation and the grades you can move mountains and wave requirements if you ask sometimes.

Best of Luck.

I cannot speak from experience at UMass but through affiliation with four medium to large research universities as undergraduate, grad student, or staff. You should not expect to be offered research opportunities at any level, but if you seek them out you can participate in research as early as your freshman year. Professors will have active research programs – read their webpages and scholarly articles and approach those whose work interests you. Ask how you can get involved. If you want to do independent research for credit in your major that is likely to be listed in the catalog. There is an office staffed to help you find research opportunities: http://www.umass.edu/ours/ and a lot of special opportunities and funding for honors students (https://www.honors.umass.edu/research). When people say “research” for a university, they always mean original research. I’ve never heard of universities encouraging people to copy experiments from the internet – unless you are trying to replicate a controversial result.

If you are admitted to the CHC, senior year will require a capstone project, In the sciences, that means doing a research project in a professor’s lab.

Thank you all! This discussion has been very helpful!