Hi everyone! I’m a current freshman interested in concentrating in chemistry. I’ve noticed that a lot of the Brown alums that post on here have taken a lot of science courses at Brown, so I was hoping that some of you might be willing to share your experiences! Here are some of the question I have:
Which courses in the chem department would you recommend/ did you particularly enjoy?
Best professors in chem? Any professors that weren’t so great (in terms of lecture style or just the class they taught)?
In terms of difficulty and time commitment, how would you rank orgo, inorganic, biochem and pchem? Also, which of these four did you enjoy the most at brown?
Best professors/classes in the other science departments (bio, physics, neuro, math, etc)?
Also, if any of you would be willing to talk about your undergrad research experience, that would be really helpful. How did you first get involve in a research lab and what kind of project did you start out working on? (Do most undergrads work with grad students on their projects, or is there opportunity to carry out independent projects as well?) Thanks so much!
Not a chemistry concentrator myself but did have a friend who was a chemistry/econ double concentrator who did research with Zimmt (I don’t think he’s there anymore?). If I recall, it was his own project - I believe that’s a requirement for the honors thesis, which I know he did. I was at his presentation and it was something involving stacking monolayers of molecules or something. I didn’t fully understand it at the time and now it’s over 6 years ago. I’m sure he still worked with grad students to some extent but I remember him constantly going into lab for short periods of time at all sorts of hours because his work was mostly synthesis so it was a lot of “mix a few solutions together, let it sit for 5 hours, then do xyz, let it sit for 3 hours, etc”
To your other questions, I hope response rates for the critical review haven’t died down since my time at Brown (http://www.thecriticalreview.org/). It’s definitely a great resource for learning about courses as it’s essentially ratemyprof but it ensures the reviews are only from students who took the class that semester, and by physically handing out surveys in class, encourages a wider range of opinions to be recorded.
Thanks so much for your reply- it was really helpful and gave me a lot of things to consider!