The UC's in biology

alicantekid
Thu, 09 Dec 2004 16:03:42 +0000

I second yackityack’s comments on UCI. Although the UC schools are large, those students who get into one of our over 300 bio labs have a great opportunity to do some real hands-on stuff. A decent number of undergrads actually get published in some pretty good journals, and this really puts them ahead of the pack when they are applying for graduate and medical school. Although some professors don’t want to work with undergrads at all, they are in the minority. Many professors like working with undergrads and helping them do meaningful research and write a senior thesis. These professors will have great things to say about you in a letter of rec. Of course, an applicant to grad/med school needs more than one letter of rec, so it’s on the student to develop relationships with other profs by going to office hours and meeting them after class and stuff. Although the core courses are big (350 students), the upper division classes can number anywhere from 20-100, which will allow you to get to know the profs better.