Planning to major in chem, good colleges?

modestmelody
Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:22:55 +0000

I’ve sat in or organic chemistry classes at 12 universities-- there’s a huge difference in the ability to convey information, and I’ve often found that a lot of that difference had to do with whether the faculty viewed teaching 150 freshman/sophomores, most of whom probably didn’t want to be there, as a reward or a punishment.

There are many schools where intro chem is reserved for anyone but the established best teachers, and there are many schools where teaching is not rewarded. This can be very tough in chemistry-- the rumors of professors who speak heavily accented, unclear English are really not too overstated, there are many places where this is true. And that’s just in the classroom…

I don’t really think that working in a lab group of 40 that’s constantly pumping out papers is going to provide the same mentoring experience and relationship that working in a lab group of 3 undergrads and 3 graduate students that only publishes twice a year is going to provide.