Pomona vs Wesleyan?

interesteddad
Fri, 17 Feb 2006 16:50:16 +0000

Mini:

Here’s the link to the Joint Sciences Department:

http://www.jsd.claremont.edu/

You can spin it anyway you like, but the fact remains that Scripps, Pitzer, and CMC don’t have their own bio departments, their own chem departments, or their own physics departments. That’s OK, because none of them have any science majors to speak of.

In their most recent Common Data Set, Scripps listed 7 Bio majors, 2 math majors, 1 students majoring in “physical sciences” (chem or physics).

This semester, the Joint Sciences Department offers five physics courses to the students of Pitzer, Scripps, and CMC. Two of these are basic intro courses (General Physics, and Principles of Physics), two are electives (Intermediate Electricity and Magnetism and Computational Physics and Engineeering), and one (by far the largest) is a “rocks for jocks” type course (Energy and the Enviroment). There are four physics professors shared by the three colleges.

Pomona’s Physics Department offers eight courses this semester – one general intro course without calc, one with, plus six upper level electives. There are seven full-time physics professors.

I think the Joint Sciences Department is a great idea for Scripps, Pitzer, and CMC. But, lets not sell it for more than what it is – a cost-effective way to offer bare bones distribution-requirement sciences to three small schools with virtually no science major students.

BTW, on the Pomona/Wesleyan choice – that is such a close call that I think the student would really have to visit and explore both colleges for himself. They are so comparable, but very different in terms of geography, climate, style, etc.

BTW, this “Keck Science Center” you refer to is one building that houses all of the bio, chem, and physics for the three colleges.