Undergraduate Research

archon
Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:50:29 +0000

Based on some of the criteria that you gave there’s no real way to compare between those schools because as belevitt said, these types of things differ depending how the PI runs the lab.

If you’re looking for a place that provides lots of options to pursue the research that you want, then I’d have say Cal, hands down. There are a lot of professors in many departments at Berkeley (MCB, bioengineering, etc) that work on a variety of projects for you to choose, and some of them are affiliated with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. As far as not having a med school, I don’t think this is a problem at all because you have UCSF across the Bay Bridge. UCSF is one of the top medical schools in the country and is a powerhouse in biological/medical research. Although they don’t have undergraduates there, there are definitely PIs who would be open to having some from other institutions. Between these two, you can hop around to find exactly what you’re interested in.