<p>If you're a current undergrad majoring in a bioscience at a Big 10 university, what is your dept/major and what is the good and bad of your educational experience in your program at your school? Give a realistic picture of what it's like in that dept/major---opportunities, positives, negatives, what you liked and didn't like, teaching quality, class size, facilities, etc.</p>
<p>Hi Zapfino, since nobody spoke up, I figure I am the next best thing. I am no longer a college student but I attended undergrad at the University of Wisconsin (big ten for ya) and majored in Bacteriology (biological science). I graduated six years ago so I think my experiences are relatively current.</p>
<p>I enjoyed my time in college but I could just as easily imagine it anywhere else. My department didn’t do a whole lot to help me out- when I went looking for lab jobs, I ended up in labs in different departments. When I was interested in clinical experience, I had to find hospital volunteering gigs on my own. It wasn’t until recently that I even found out that there were awards and grants I could have applied for internal and external to the department.</p>
<p>The classes were good and served me well in my career in biotech and in academia. I got to know the teaching staff (non tenure track professors) quite well. I also got to know my research mentor well. I graduated without meeting all of the faculty in the department, despite attending the microbiology club and conducting research in multiple labs. </p>
<p>The class sizes for courses in the major were about 30 students, all Bacti majors. It was neat, it made for some cohesion. I remember going to pubs with other bact majors. The labs covered relevant techniques in the field and offered us use of things like mass specs, qPCR machines, sequencers etc. </p>
<p>Of course, the bulk of your time in college isn’t spent taking classes for your major. The majority is spent taking pre reqs (at least for biomedical sciences). That means that the chem, biology, physics, biochemistry, genetics and math departments all had to be passable as well. I think those at UW were.</p>
<p>If I could point to one clear negative to studying biological sciences at Madison, it would be the advising. I feel that an involved advisor would have been able to introduce me to the great things the department had to offer, tell me about special courses, introduce me to faculty, let me know about awards/grants and so on. There was no infrastructure for advising beyond a research faculty advisor who met with you once per year to sign off on your course schedule so that you would graduate on time.</p>
<p>Thanks, belevitt. That was exactly the sort of description I was looking for—a great synopsis of your experience. i hope others will share their experiences as well from their schools and depts. as I think many CCers would find it helpful.</p>