<p>I'm sorry if this topic has already been discussed, but I'm curious about Chicago's mentality on competition. I had heard that this school's really academic. Classes are difficult. Competition is cutthroat. Is it true?
And if anyone has any experience in physics at Chicago, could you please share some of it? Or possibly give some advice? Physics is rightfully known as a "hard science" and I'm worried about going to such a world-renowned institution if everyone is a genius and no one collaborates.
Thanks for any advice/insight!</p>
<p>“This school’s really academic” – True, relative to most other colleges. But it’s not by any means exclusively academic; people happily do all kinds of nonacademic things.</p>
<p>“Classes are difficult” – Often true, but as is the case everywhere some classes are more difficult than others, and as people progress in their college careers and develop a base of knowledge and an understanding of what’s required of them, they tend to notice that the classes no longer seem as difficult as they once did.</p>
<p>“Competition is cutthroat” – Absolutely false, as far as I can tell. Maybe there’s something like cutthroat competition among econ majors vying for Wall St. internships, but I have never heard any Chicago student describe any kind of competitive behavior among students in their classes and labs, and that includes plenty of pre-meds. With the caveat that smart people are always a little competitive with one another, and that there is always going to be some intellectual one-upsmanship going on, some of it obnoxious and some not, everything I have heard from my children and their friends, and other Chicago alumni, tells me that Chicago is one of the most collaborative places you could possibly be.</p>
<p>Competitive? Uh, no… S reports that the folks in his math sequence met several times a quarter to work together on p-sets and to teach each other whatever they didn’t understand in class. These sessions include folks bringing food and hanging out til the wee hours of the AM talking about things other than math. He has found Chicago refreshingly free of grade-grubbing, at least in his major and in the courses he has taken to date.</p>
<p>From what I saw with my D, U Chicago goes out of its way to dampen down competitive instincts. To use just one example: Try to find any information about GPA distribution among students. A school that does not even let you figure out if you’re doing above or below average is one that does not encourage competition, IMHO. </p>
<p>Individual faculty in specific courses may give out information about exam grade distribution and such, but that’s as far as I ever heard it go. </p>
<p>A curious side effect of this approach is that it can be hard for an individual student to figure out if they’re a star that should be pursuing national honors and fellowships (Udall, Goldwater and such). That’s where the advisers can really make a difference, and one reason why it is good to get to know them well.</p>
<p>For whatever reason, people seem to associate academic rigor with person-against-person competition. For a variety of reasons, I don’t think Chicago is going to become a place where people grade-share any time soon.</p>
<p>1) Students working on problem sets typically know each other and seek each other out. All of the first-year pre-meds and physics majors in my house become friends instantly, and often seek out the elders for advice. Perhaps there’s an unspoken assumption that the work is hard and that the students are in it to be in it-- after all, you did choose <em>the University of Chicago</em> and not the school where you thought you could inflate your GPA the most. My friends at MIT note a similar patter.</p>
<p>2) Many of your friends won’t be in your class and won’t be in your major. So if you DO talk about grades, it’s like talking about your weight on the moon versus your weight on earth. If your friend mentions that he got an A- in a class, how do you know you wouldn’t have gotten an A? And if you mention getting a B in a class, your friend doesn’t know if she might have gotten a B-. Grades are so relative.</p>
<p>3) It’s just bad form to talk about this stuff, and you’ll soon realize that everybody is pretty darn smart, and even if they are not academic superstars, they have tons of other awesome attributes that you don’t. So I think the general feeling I get here is awe for my peers rather than feeling like I have to compete with them.</p>
<p>Environments that tend to be competitive-- I’m thinking about law school-- are places where everybody wants the same goal, grades and rank are relatively known, and grades determine a lot for future prospects. If your goal is to be, say, an art critic, you don’t care that much about your calc grades, and neither do your employers, but you care about your internship at the Chicago Weekly or at the Smart Museum. If you care about Wall Street, then you might care about CCiB and Blue Chips, but not Art/Music/Drama core.</p>
<p>thank you!</p>
<p>I’m also curious about the OP’s question–how is physics at UofC? Are there a large number of physics majors? Any advice?</p>
<p>(My major is likely to be physics)</p>
<p>Yes, I know a lot of physics majors, but I can’t give specific advice about the major or the program aside from the fact that they seem to really like it.</p>
<p>Chicago is the main academic institution involved in running two national nuclear laboratories – Argonne and Fermi – neither of which is far from Chicago itself. There are probably more actual physicists in the Chicago area, working on actual physics, than any other place in North America except maybe the Bay Area (with the Berkeley and Livermore labs and SLAC). And all of them are connected to the University of Chicago. And that filters down to the undergraduates. So, yes, there is a big physics program.</p>
<p>JHS,</p>
<p>You may be overstating the case a bit w/r/t the national labs, because UofC does not actually manage them, a consortium does:
</p>
<p>It is true that some researchers at Argonne and Fermilab have appointments at UofC, but they also might have appointments at Northwestern, UIUC, UIC and elsewhere. Even the ones with UofC appointments, even back in the days where UofC directly managed Argonne, had limited involvement with the UofC campus in most cases. </p>
<p>But Chicago’s physics program is strong enough without these national labs that their impact or lack of such should not affect any undergrad.</p>
<p>Interesting side note, Argonne’s mission has evolved way beyond phyics, involving a lot of chemistry and life sciences these days.</p>
<p>Important note regardless. Argonne, Fermilab and the Fermi/Franck institutes have a gigantic number of projects. Enormous. Huge. If you are beyond the most basic classes is the hard sciences, there will be lab jobs.</p>
<p>Psych is almost the same way, incidentally.</p>
<p>kodama,</p>
<p>Fermi/Frank is right on campus, practically across the street from the Reg, so that is convenient.</p>
<p>But the national labs are a long painful drive, especially during rush hour. When I had meetings at Argonne, I needed an hour to drive from Hyde Park. I think Fermilab is worse, because it is not a direct shot down a freeway. I doubt either is even served by public transit.</p>
<p>One way or another, a lot of my kid’s friends are working at Argonne or Fermi this summer.</p>
<p>JHS,</p>
<p>Perhaps that’s because:</p>
<ol>
<li> Federal labs tend to have active summer job programs.</li>
<li> Full time summer work tends to make the commuting time equation less difficult.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>My point in 12 was that a 2 hour round trip commute for a part time school term job is not a good deal for most kids, especially when something just as good is available 5 minutes by foot. I think we both know summer jobs are a different story, and that students will even travel to another city for a decent summer job.</p>