Neuroscience at Amherst

coldsweat
Wed, 04 Jul 2007 00:49:49 +0000

if you haven’t visited this website yet, check it out - it’s the department’s web page.

http://www.amherst.edu/~neuro/

through my personal experience with the department, i would definitely recommend amherst for students interested in neuroscience. the professors who teach the neuroscience courses are extremely smart AND communicate the subject clearly through their lectures. in fact, my favorite lecturer at the school is from the neuroscience department - professor turgeon - who lectures so fast that you’re writing at hyperspeed the majority of the time (and yet she still maintains to model everything very straightforwardly). the structure of the class and the tests force students to think in the mode of an scientists by asking students to design their own hypothetical experiments. as a result, the classes are very challenging but the students learn a ton. as for research opportunities, you’ll definitely discover them. the professors i’ve had conduct extensive research and seem to get published frequently (professor baird seems to publish the most since he is demystifying the neural mechanisms of taste, a hot field). the major requires the most courses at the school, however, which concentrate in the sciences. hence, you’ll spend a great amount of time in the lab, but if you love that experience, then that’ll appeal to you. the chair of the department is very supportive and continuously works on improving the department.