Planning to major in chem, good colleges?

modestmelody
Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:26:59 +0000

My experience was that Brown is about the minimum size in terms of covering my interests, and I also found we were unusually well-equipped for a department our size. We have about 10-15 undergraduate concentrators (not including biochem or chem engineering) each year and 23 or 24 full-time, on tenure track (or tenured) chemistry department faculty members, with about 70-90 graduate students (depending on year).

So to me, a nice ratio was 1:1.5:3 (undergrad:faculty:graduate student), in fact, that was really ideal. I wouldn’t go less than 20 faculty members, unless many are dedicated to a particular area you’re interested in (and this is hard to determine this early). I also would check to see if other departments have some overlapping faculty which may help-- most places, chemists, biochemists, chem engineers, geologists, and physicists have some overlap.

Oh, I should add, that it is 10-15 undergraduate concentrators per year and 70-90 graduate students total at any given time. So, in terms of “declared” chemistry concentrators, there were between 20-30 at any given time, not include biochem (housed half in chem and half in bio at Brown).

So it may be more fair to say it was 1:1:3.