If anybody is taking it or has experience in either of these categories any info would be much appreciated. Things like class size, how the professors are in general, nature of the classes(ie almost full lecture) and difficulty compared to other programs.
I know nothing about astronomy, but I majored in Geophysical Sciences. I graduated a few years back so my information may not be perfectly up to date. But I loved being part of the Geosci department. There are typically only a handful of students per year majoring in the subject, so most courses, including the intro sequence, are quite small–10-20 students. Most of the professors I had were really terrific. Most courses were lecture with a weekly lab and sometimes a field trip. There is also a field course offered every year during spring break, which is lots of fun.
The main difference between this program and geology programs you might find elsewhere is that this is a very flexible major with few specific required geology courses (e.g. mineralogy, petrology, stratigraphy, full summer field camp, etc.). You need to have a foundation in math, chemistry, physics, and biology and then take the core sequence (it used to be physical geology, earth history, and the atmosphere), but the rest of your courses are up to you. This is great if you want to tailor the major to your interests, as I did, but less great if you want a traditional geology major that would qualify you to work for an oil company or something similar. Most of the important traditional geology courses are offered at some time, but may not be offered regularly. Look up the course catalog and see if the listings suit your interests, but don’t decide based on the existence of one or two classes that may never be offered.
Overall, the strengths of the program (small classes, flexibility) have a flipside that could be cons based on your needs (fewer students to fill the classes, fewer classes offered at any given time, less structured curriculum that can result in a random assortment of classes and less depth in your area of interest). For me, it acted as a really valuable supplement to my biology major, but I don’t feel nearly as well versed in geophysical sciences as I do in biology. Yet I much preferred the geosci department, since it was a smaller, more close-knit community of professors, grad students, and undergrads.
Awesome, thanks for the reply! That sounds perfect as I wasn’t going a traditional geology route and the things you describe sound awesome, do the field courses cost a lot extra? Finally how was the difficulty of courses compared to biology?
I can’t remember how much the field trip cost–they alternated between a domestic destination (e.g. the national parks in West Texas) and international (Bahamas, I think sometimes Italy) and the cost for the former is less. But I do remember that the cost of the trip was heavily subsidized such that it was much cheaper than if you were to take a similar trip on your own, and you got to learn geology all week and get course credit on top of that.
I’m not sure about the difficulty. I found most of my courses sufficiently challenging, but found it pretty easy to get As, because I really enjoyed the courses and the classes were small and the professors easy to talk to. I felt the same way about my small, upper-level biology courses, whereas the intro bio courses (I took the AP5 sequence) and biochem were harder, partly because there was more competition, less interaction with professors due to the larger class size, and because I wasn’t as interested in the material.
Thanks! You’ve got me rather excited for the program, it sounds like something I would really enjoy, now to just get accepted.