I graduated from a midwestern LAC that was pretty out there and intellectual. I’m thinking about grad school down the road and while I haven’t exactly what path in terms of program (more technical vs. more general social science oriented), I am trying to look into different schools. The idea of going to a huge school is pretty daunting, so I was wondering if anyone could suggest any universities where there is a decently sized alternative population and is more community oriented (or at least has grad school housing or co-ops). Thanks!
Wisconsin or Michigan would have an alternative population, but wouldn’t really have the LAC vibe.
One thing to remember is that graduate school is fundamentally different from undergraduate. One, the nature of graduate programs means that most of the universities that house them are medium-sized research universities at best. There are a few LACs that have graduate programs - usually just a handful of programs. Those tend to be social science or humanities programs, but you might find a few technical programs there.
Two, remember that the focus of your graduate years is not on your social experience. You want to pick the program that is best for you academically and career-wise, especially if you are interested in a PhD program and particularly if you are paying out of pocket for a professional master’s. Besides, there’s rarely a large connected community of graduate students the way that there is in undergrad. Usually, you connect socially with the other students in your program. So likely it’s the size of the program you need to focus on instead of the university overall. Most departments - even ones that are ‘large’ for their fields - are quite small. For example, my doctoral psychology department had about 40-50 doctoral students, perhaps, at all levels at any given point in time. Even the entire school of public health had about 1200 students enrolled when I was there, which feels pretty small and intimate.
Most universities have graduate school housing. Whether or not the majority of graduate students live there depends on the university and its policies. Also, graduate-school housing is usually mostly apartment-style - you share an apartment with 1-3 other graduate students. Often universities have 1 or 2 dormitory-style buildings. Co-ops - well, those are a bit more uncommon. If you attend a graduate program in a large city you might be able to join a community co-op building. There are also options like the International House in New York, which houses graduate students and young professionals from all over the world for up to three years. It is sort-of co-op style, with nice amenities and all kinds of events and special showcases for residents.
Some of what you are looking for was at Cornell when I attended grad school there back in the last century.
But frankly, until you know that you do need a graduate degree for your career goals, and you know what you need that degree to be in, worrying about “vibes” is a waste of your time. If for your career you need to study with Dr. Special, then wherever Dr. Special is working is where you need to be, “vibes” or no “vibes”.
The vibe will have more to do with your chosen field of study than the school as a whole. A “large” school will become small because you will do little, if anything, beyond your departmental community. The vibe among physics grad students is probably going to be different than among philosophy grad students. And across philosophy departments, depending on which specialty one chooses, there will be variation there too. Fields like gender studies or anthropology might draw more “alternative” personalities.
As mentioned up-thread, your principal concern should be obtaining the best fit in terms of faculty and course offerings to achieve your long term goals. The rest should take care of itself. Most universities will have a grad students association that will enable you to meet people beyond your discipline.
My D1 graduated from an LAC that is described by some identically to your description of yours.
(though in her school’s case that description is exaggerated IMO, but whatever…)
She is attending a large university for graduate school.
She loves it there. Much better than her undergrad. There is so much more for her to do. Great college town, dwarfs her LACs little few blocks. Myriad lectures, lots of TA opportunities, activities, etc.
As someone said, “you can make a big school functionally smaller, but it’s a lot harder to make a little school bigger”.
YMMV.
So right now, I’m planning to go to school for Human-Computer Interaction because it combines Psychology and Information Studies. I’m thinking about applying to Michigan, Indiana, Washington, Georgia Tech, UNC, and Carnegie Mellon. So I appreciate hearing about Michigan (it’s one of my top two!). I’ll look into Cornell because I think they have a program too, and I think I would like Ithaca.
Ithaca is great.
When considering programs at Cornell, be sure to check offerings at the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, aside from the colleges of Arts & Sciences & Engineering. [Although the graduate school may subsume all of them…]
The reason I mention this is that, though it might be a less obvious choice, at least to me, CALS has an undergrad program in communications, which is a very psychology-slanted program, and also has an undergrad major in information systems. Don’t know anything about the graduate programs in these fields though.
Human-computer interaction is the field I currently work in. UW is an excellent place, because not only is their program one of the first and top ones in the country, but it’s also in the middle of the Seattle tech industry - where you could intern and network for jobs. A lot of my coworkers at Microsoft are currently in that program part-time.
All the places you mentioned have excellent HCI programs. University of Maryland also has a great one. MIT offers an MS in Media Arts & Sciences, which is actually pretty computer science heavy and acts like an HCI program. You can also participate in the Media Lab there.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I am good enough of a programmer for MIT’s program. It seems like you need to have a pretty good grasp on CS. Maryland might work though! I was looking at Washington’s 1 year program, but I’ll look into their two year program too. I might apply to both.