Amherst STEM majors

Colleges and Universities A-Z Amherst College
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1

Hello Everyone,

I got into the Amherst class of 2025 with a full ride. I know Amherst is an extremely prestigious and awesome college. But I will 95% chance, major in CS or any other engineering field. So I had some questions.’

  1. How is Amherst College in general for any one of these STEM subjects- CS, Math & Statistics and Physics.

  2. What kind of teaching I will get at Amherst for one of the subjects (any of the 3 majors mentioned)? Is it teaching-oriented or research-based? Will I be able to learn industry-based knowledge like landing a job at Silicon Valley or starting my own startup for any of these majors?

  3. Does Amherst college have popularity in one of these majors? do top CS and engineering companies recruit people from Amherst on a regular basis?

  4. Research and extracurricular opportunities in any of the fields?

  5. What is the alumni scenario? Is there any estimated salary Amherst alumni may earn?

  6. Estimated percentage of students entering top US graduate schools like Stanford or MIT for ENGINEERING and CS?

  7. For STEM, as far as I know everything is located in the New Science Center. Is it too facilitated with labs and equipment for major physics or biological research?

2

Sorry, a correction, I wanted to mean I will choose occupation in CS or in an engineering field in future, not majoring. I am alright with majoring in pure science subjects. For some reason, not being able to edit the post.

3

You can look up Amherst’s CS, statistics, and physics offerings on its web site.

It is part of a consortium that includes University of Massachusetts that can provide additional upper level courses. However, getting into CS courses at University of Massachusetts may be difficult as a consortium student (the CS major is limited enrollment there, presumably to prevent upper level courses from overflowing).

If you want to study an engineering major, why not choose a school that has the engineering major you want?

4

Hello, thanks for the answer. I meant to write entering an engineering occupation, not majoring. I mistook, but can’t edit for any reason. so what would be your advice about going to Amherst for CS major or any STEM majors like math, statistics or physics which may lead to an engineering degree in grad school?

5

Undergraduate engineering study will include upper level engineering science courses and upper level engineering design courses (with design projects). So if you go from science undergraduate to engineering graduate, you would likely need to do some catching up.

The following may be more likely science-to-engineering transitions:

  • Computer science to computer engineering.
  • Statistics or applied math (statistics or operations research emphasis) to industrial engineering.

For most other types of engineering, physics would be the closest preparation, but there can still be considerable catching up to do.

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