Stanford's academic life

Colleges & Universities Stanford University
1

<p>I’m accepted to Stanford Class '09!!! But I’m still wondering about the academic life there.

  1. how’s the psychology, economic and eastern studies majors for undergraduate?
  2. how are the faculties teaching undergraduate? I heard that in big schools like Harvard, Stanford, undergraduate lacks individual attention. are research opportunites easily available? Do undergraduates hve to compete with upper-classmen for research opportunities?
  3. is there any difference btw going to a top liberal arts college and then to Stanford for grad. and going to Stanford for undergrad and then also to Stanford or some other Ivy for grad?
  4. how’s the pre-med at Stanford?
  5. is there generous financial aid for study abroad opportunities?
    waiting for ur reply!</p>
2

<p>I can make a start at answering your questions. My son is a Japanese language major at Stanford (senior) who has also taken a number of science and engineering courses. He spent one academic year studying at the Stanford Center in Kyoto, Japan.</p>

<p>My son is very pleased with the Japanese department at Stanford. He has found science courses good, but very difficult. A Nobel prize winner taught his introductory physics class, so you do get good professors teaching undergrads, even though the class size may be quite large. TA’s will teach the sections of these courses. You can get individual attention if you take some initiative. The same goes for research opportunities. They will not be handed to you, but they are available for undergrads.</p>

<p>When a student studies overseas, he receives his usual financial aid package, plus some extra to make up for the extra costs. With my son, both his grants and loans were increased the year he studied overseas. There was also more out of our pockets, but much of that was due to trips he took on his own.</p>

<p>I can’t answer the rest of your questions, because I do not know much about the pre-med program (other than that it is quite demanding) or the economics or psychology programs. (I studied psychology there, but that was in the Dark Ages…) And I have no ideas on #3.</p>

<p>Hope this helps a bit!</p>

3

<p>bnl - Stanford for years has had the best psychology department in the country - for experimental psychology at least. But I have to wonder. How do you not know this? It’s on the website!!!</p>