<p>The deadline for Harvard is coming up, and the apps explicitly ask which professors I have maintained contact with. It's funny because the program I'm applying to (DMS-Pathology) has the worst faculty listing I've encountered so far, with only email addresses next to names. I know I can look them up via pubmed, but that just seems so tedious right now. </p>
<p>Should I really try to contact the professors? I'm not really itching to contact professors in the first place, and this scenario just makes it even more bothersome for me.</p>
<p>edit: i did find a link to the research interests of about 40, but I guess it would be too difficult to compile the list of 200+ affiliated professors.</p>
<p>All of the BBS faculty interests are [url=<a href="http://www.hms.harvard.edu/dms/bbs/fac_department.html%5Dhere%5B/url">http://www.hms.harvard.edu/dms/bbs/fac_department.html]here[/url</a>], listed by department.</p>
<p>I didn't contact any professors during applications, and happily left that portion of the application blank. My undergrad PI advised against contacting people, so I just ignored that piece of conventional wisdom.</p>
<p>that was the page i actually found, and i guess it's a starting point for me. </p>
<p>mollie, since you're actually in that bbs program, could you give a brief overview of your experience there, what you like, what you don't like? i understand that you do your lab rotations in your first year; did you know who you wanted to work with before you officially enrolled? </p>
<p>thanks in advance.</p>
<p>Sure thing.</p>
<p>I like BBS a lot so far -- compared to other top biology programs, there are fewer graduate students and more professors, so many of the professors are actively looking for new students. I've met so many professors since the beginning of the school term; they participate heavily in leading seminars and classes because they want to meet and recruit students to their labs.</p>
<p>We're required to take more classes than other biology programs, which I mind more than I thought I would. I've taken classes for seventeen years now! I'm so tired of classes. I think I'm going to take some of the smaller seminar-style courses next semester so I don't have to sit through any more lectures.</p>
<p>I didn't really know who (or what) I wanted to work with when I applied. My academic interests are pretty wide-spread, so I wanted a program where I could explore lots of different labs before deciding on one. The hardest part about that, of course, is that now I'm here, and there are so many professors doing cool stuff. :) I suppose that, all things considered, that's not a horrible problem to have. I'm in my first rotation right now (I'm rotating with a professor I met during orientation), and I'll probably start my second rotation around the first of the year.</p>
<p>Is there anything I left out?</p>
<p>I know what you mean when you say that you don't want to go to anymore lectures. I'm a 5th year, and I'm starting to feel burnt out with all the school lectures. Whenever I leave the campus and go to my research lab, however, I feel so energized. Regardless, those grad school courses will probably be more useful than anything I've learnt in the past, so I'm not too wary about them as I am about my current classes. </p>
<p>It feels odd to me that professors actively search for students, heh. It seems like a great program to be in; I just hope I can make the initial cut.</p>
<p>Well, at least the initial cut is the only cut there is. :)</p>
<p>BBS doesn't interview, so people are accepted straight out in late January/early February. The other top schools interview about a third of their applicants, then accept about two thirds of the people they interview, which is fairly stressful. I suspect it is easier to get into BBS than it is to get into some of the other schools.</p>