Courses of study...

Colleges and Universities A-Z Rice University
1

<p>Does Rice offer support for people who have no idea what they want their major to be? Are there plenty of options to choose from? What is the environment really like for undergraduates ?</p>

<p>On a different note, how would you rate your quality of life/happiness level?
There is no way with my family budget that I can visit Rice or any other of my top choice schools. Is there anything you can tell me, like even everyday things that would help me be more informed?</p>

<p>I appreciate it.</p>

2

<p>I'll start you off with a few links:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=291183%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=291183&lt;/a>
A recent discussion on residential college life:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=391103%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=391103&lt;/a>
There are many other useful threads through which you may wish to peruse.</p>

<p>I'd say Rice is one of the better schools for those with an undecided major. When you apply, you will be asked to select a "division" (humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, or engineering -- music and architecture are a little different, so I'll assume you won't be one of these). You are by no means bound to what you put [you can even change it the moment you arrive to campus for Orientation Week (O-Week) if you've changed your mind], but it gives the advisers a good place to start. During O-Week, you'll have a chance to browse through various departments and talk with both professors and students. You will then have a personal advising session with a professor in your "division" (this is later replaced by a major-specific adviser once you declare a major). Between all of this, you should end up with a rather satisfying schedule. Rice is particularly good for an undecided major because we have such a flexible curriculum. You can seriously take a year and a half of just humanities courses and then decide to major in physics and still pull it off (although it's a lot easier the other way around).</p>

<p>In terms of "options", are you asking about different options for majors or for courses? As far as courses go, you can find out everything here:
<a href="http://courses.rice.edu/admweb/swkscat.main?p_term=200810%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://courses.rice.edu/admweb/swkscat.main?p_term=200810&lt;/a>
Pretty diverse sampling of courses with lots of selections.
There's also a list of majors somewhere (not sure where), but it's pretty much standard for a university (plus music and architecture, which are less common). Granted, you can't major in entomology or Flemish studies like you can at some larger schools, but we have all the standard majors.</p>

<p>The "environment" for undergraduates is incredible. This is a school at which the undergraduate student body is of primary importance and the graduate body of secondary importance. I am a freshman and my only class that's taught by a grad student is music theory (and, like I said, music works in a different way from everything else), and I've never seen a T.A. in any of my classes (I think they do pop up for labs in sciences, though).</p>

<p>I know Princeton Review can be a little random, but last I checked, they considered Rice to be the third best "undergraduate experience", so that must mean something (they also ranked us #1 for quality of life and a few other things...oh, and Seventeen magazine once called us the "coolest school in the land", just to throw that out there). Oh, and our quality of life really is terrific. The food and the dorms are very nice, but the real essence of this goes back to the residential college system. You'll have to read that original link to find out more. In terms of happiness, I can't recall anyone saying they weren't happy at Rice (a few gripings about specific features, but never about the whole school), and I can't recall anyone saying they were "depressed" (maybe a little upset from time to time, but rarely longterm).</p>

<p>Hope this answered some of your questions. If you have more, just ask away.</p>

3

<p>Clendenenator said it perfect and I second the motion. Rice has one of the best systems for student advising I've seen. You will not feel like a lost number with regards to what and who you want to be. A lot of this is because of the Residential College system and the size of the school.</p>

4

<p>I'd have to respectfully disagree. Although I believe Rice is a great place to be for undecided majors due to the flexibility of the curriculum and the presence of 10-course majors, I find the advising to be mediocre. I had to figure out my major almost completely by myself. That is not necessarily bad in the end, but I needed more direction than the major advisers were willing to give. </p>

<p>I took this academic advising psychology test that they offered, but overall it was pointless. The academic (as opposed to major) advisers are friendly, but all they can say is things like, "So you could be a scientist, business manager, or even a professor." Thanks a lot. </p>

<p>The major advisers basically told me to take the intros courses, and no one seemed interested in what I thought about the fields or my goals, etc. My advice to undecided freshmen would be to really push the major advisers, who are in each department, e.g. Math or Psychology, to get information and advice. It will probably be better than my experience, which consisted of looking at course reviews to gauge professor quality, taking courses in a whole bunch of departments which really wasted time, and thinking a lot about each field. I found it difficult. </p>

<p>Nevertheless, I am extremely thankful to be at Rice where there are some high quality courses in numerous departments. The only problem is that you have to find them yourself.</p>

5

<p>The majors that I would recommend outright are math, physics, caam, anthropology, religious studies, and maybe art history. Keep your eye out for those. I am not one of those majors because I am more interested in other stuff, so don't think you need to do one of the better majors (if those even are the ones) necessarily. I think econ has some great professors and classes, but also some pretty unpopular ones and a lot of people who major in it treat it as a joke. </p>

<p>Finally, I don't know about all the majors so I hope I didn't leave any out. I can't comment on engineering, either. There are outstanding professors, however, in every department. I can think of awesome professors in history, philosophy, political science, classics, and linguistics, to name a few.</p>

6

<p>I'd agree with sreis's statement above, but not necessarily with the tone. The divisional adviser that you are assigned during orientation week might not be that helpful (mine wasn't) but I've found that basically every major adviser (professors who focus on what's actually in there department, rather than trying to be a "social sciences" adviser) I've ever tried to talk to has been very accessible and helpful. I've had numerous chats with the professor I'm currently using as my adviser (though he isn't the one the department assigned to me) about exactly what aspects of the field I'm interested in, what classes/projects I should do to head in that direction, where I should think about for grad school and a career.</p>

<p>Basically the advice is there, you just have to actually seek it out.</p>

7

<p>I guess the helpfulness of your divisional advisor depends on circumstances. Mine has been great, and I talk to him often, but it's much harder to assign an outright undecided student to an advisor who will be able to offer good advice.</p>

8

<p>My daughter has had lots of "advising" and very close and personal mentoring from profs in some of the classes she has taken. I do think Rice has excellent advising - but it doesn't all come from the advising department; it comes from all areas - talking with other students, discussing things with your college masters and R.A.'s, talking with profs in classes and areas you are interested in, as well as the advisors. You can't expect an advisor to tell you what you are interested in, or what you should do with your academic life - unless you have some ideas and goals yourself. I actually think the advice that sreis got is good for undecided students; take classes in a variety of areas until you find an area that you can "own". My daughter changed majors and also areas of focus many times. She is still on track to graduate in 4 years - and every semester there are way too many classes she wants to take, and not nearly enough time to take them all! :)</p>

9

<p>It's true that I pretty much knew what courses I wanted to take before I met my adviser (mostly from talking to upperclassmen), so he didn't really provide that much, but you can't really expect to go into any counseling session with absolutely no comments on what your interests are and expect to be told exactly what majors/courses are right for you. If you were to, say, mention you had certain interests in certain fields, your adviser should be able to point you toward a good intro class, though, to try things out.</p>

10

<p>I don't understand the way people behave on this board. Because I don't think I received good or excellent advising, doesn't mean I want to be told "exactly what majors/courses are right for me" or that I expect an advisor to "tell me what I am interested in." These aren't explicitly directed at me, but it follows. </p>

<p>And also, what is with this "X is there, you just have to seek it out" line that occurs over and over on the Rice board but not on others? I am fully aware that advice is given to students. I am interested in whether it is good or bad, or harder or easier to get than I think it should be. </p>

<p>That said, there is a real, legitimate problem about the best way to pick a major. Everyone has an opinion. Taking intro courses in my opinion is basically the default. It requires no advice, and is basically the slowest way one could go about it. I can find the intros by the course schedules. </p>

<p>One mistake I see advisers make, though, is overemphasis on broad interest and perceived job possibilities. Those things are important, but are probably the most imprecise and variable factors.</p>

<p>Professor quality is more important to students than advisers realize. Pretty much any student will tell you when a professor sucks, but an adviser never will. Advisers certainly won't steer you away from a department because they believe it has bad teaching--that would be antithetical to their pro-Rice spirit--though that is perfectly legitimate. It seems quite common for people to switch majors because of professors, either from bad or to good. </p>

<p>In fact, advisers of any type probably don't know how good a given department is at teaching. To me, that is the most important. I am willing to learn anything from a good teacher, and since advisers don't tell me who those teachers are, they fail me. The best hope is the course reviews, which granted are Rice's doing. One might argue that someone could ask students, but the logistics of that are not good. There are many students, and the majors of your friends might not turn out to be useful. Concentration of information, whether it is stuffed inside a person called an adviser, published in course reviews, or talked about on this forum, is the whole point. </p>

<p>My ideal adviser would be a student who has been at Rice for like 9 years. The academic advisers are very different from that. Major advisers simply vary too much, but are generally too concerned with their own department to help out an undecided person. What I look for in an adviser as I have described may not what other students care about. I don't see how masters or RAs can help me, for example, unless they happen to be in the department I want to know about, which is not likely.</p>

11

<p>I won't argue with all of your points, but I will say that I don't think advisers (or at least mine) overemphasize job opportunities. I explicitly put on my academic questionnaire that my goal after college was to be a lazy bum and I was never steered toward seeking a job.</p>

12

<p>I would actually agree with sreis about divisional advisers being mostly unhelpful in terms of working on your future plans, life goals, etc.--last year. However, there has been a major shift in academic advising recently towards emphasis on future plans and overall scheme, as opposed to just classes. That was really apparent during O-Week this year--I sat outside of and eavesdropped on a couple of academic advising meetings, and I thought a lot of the advice was sound--doing this now will allow you to do this later, etc.</p>

<p>I didn't see as much trying to figure out a major at that very moment, because you really shouldn't have to. A lot of the academic advisers, O-Week advisers, and PAAs told the new students to take a variety of classes to see what they might be interested in studying further. There is absolutely no reason to figure out your major during the first week of your freshman year.</p>

<p>Edit: sorry, it looks like I'm horrendously misrepresenting your viewpoint. I'm not expressing disagreement; I'm segueing from one point to another, presenting completely separate information. I am not trying to express disagreement or agreement with anyone.</p>

13

<p>I should add, though, that Rice has great resources for study abroad and scholarships for research/graduate study after Rice.</p>