Physics at College Park

astrophysicsmom
Tue, 26 Aug 2008 07:22:53 +0000

I can pass along some of the considerations that lead D1 to College Park. She’s double-majoring in Astronomy and Physics. She LOVES UMD, and proclaimed several times last year (freshman year) that she couldn’t imagine having made a better choice.

She had AP credits for both Physics AP courses, so she did not take the intro courses last year. She did take the first lab course required for all majors, and although it was significantly easy for her, she didn’t have any complaints about the experience…like everything, your experience is based a lot on what you put into it, and I don’t believe a slick brand-new building is required to have outstanding lab experiences in Physics. This year, I think she’s taking Physics - Waves this coming semester, in addition to Differential Equations and an Astronomy class (that follows the first 2 Astrophysics classes). If you are attentive and active in classes, and make a little bit of an effort, you can get to know your professors very well. She was part of the Undergraduate Research program last year, and specifically chose to work outside Physics, just to give herself wider experience. She had an excellent working relationship with a professor in a different scientific area, and redesigned an online course website for him (and a graduate student team working with him) last semester.

I doubt if there’s a real substantive difference between UVA and UMD in terms of course offerings/professor quality/etc. In addition to looking at the online Catalogs, you should definitely look at the actual class schedules at the schools you are considering. At smaller schools with a more limited # of faculty, you will find that physics courses at the jr/sr level aren’t offered every semester, which makes it more challenging to schedule your courses to graduate on time. (i.e. some of the smaller schools that D looked at only offered specific courses she knew she’d have interest on spring or fall semesters only, or in extreme cases something like spring semester of even years, or something goofy like that). Again, I’d expect that UVA and UMD would be comparable.

D chose UMD (over UNC-Chapel Hill) primarily because of its proximity to a large city (i.e. Washington, DC) as opposed to the smaller surroundings of Chapel Hill; She also specifically wanted to get away from the large # of kids from her high school who’d all be heading to Chapel Hill. (This is a common complaint of kids heading to UMD from in-state, as well—something about being able to “reinvent yourself” and get away from petty high school stuff). She was impressed with the honors program at UMD—the honors seminars, the honors housing, etc. In reference to her particular interests, the proximity to the research opportunities at NASA’s Goddard Space Center was a big consideration (and she will be working there part-time starting in September - YAYYYY!!!)

She also got merit scholarship $$ at UMD, which made the cost of going there OOS more reasonable. It is still more than UNC-CH, but it softened the blow. Had she NOT got $$ there, she probably couldn’t have justified to herself (or US) the difference in cost. That said, however, if she had been accepted to MIT…her first choice…we would be paying a heck of a lot more money every year.

At this point, she is not planning on staying at UMD for undergrad. Her (current) top choices are MIT, CalTech, or Cal-Berkeley, but again, that is based on astrophysics Ph.D. programs. Who knows if that’s where she’ll be in 3 years, but she is confident (and her professors have confirmed) that she’ll have solid undergrad experiences at UMD to set her up for any of those choices.

Whew, that was a bunch of stuff. pm me if you want me to get any specific info from her for you. FWIW, her sister is a hs senior this year, and not at all physics oriented, and UMD is probably her #1 college choice, based on all the positive experiences her sister has had…and older sis is campaigning heavily for her to come to College Park. Good luck!