<p>" Do they typically have small or enormous class sizes?"</p>
<p>intro classes are bigish, 50-100 students, and they usually decrease in size as time goes on and subject matter becomes more specialized.</p>
<p>“And do they place emphasis on hands-on or lab work?”</p>
<p>there are seperate lab classes which students take for a whole semester</p>
<p>“Can an undergraduate work in a lab during the year or in the summer?”</p>
<p>yes, i have many friends who do, it isn’t too difficult to work under a professor. Many do research during the summer, it doesn’t come automatically, you have to seek out opportunities especially in your freshman and soph years, but if you want to do such work, you certainly can, the process isn’t difficult. </p>
<p>“Would a biochemistry student have access to shiny, fancy research machinery?”</p>
<p>i’m not a bio-chem major but i assume, yes, you would have the same research opportunities as other science fields. i don’t know the specifics of the shiny and fancy machinery you are asking about, but i can’t see how it matters. The beneficial part is working with a prof, and learning about his research, and doing a little yourself, you probably aren’t going to be pushing the bounds of biochem as an undergrad.</p>