Current Students: How is Undergraduate Biology at Harvard?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>I'm looking at where I'm going to apply Early Action for my undergraduate degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Harvard seems to be a good school stats-wise (duh). However, I feel like there's still something missing after I read through a lot of information about the undergraduate biology program.</p>

<p>Current students: could you please enlighten me as to your experiences thusfar with the Biology program, or what you've heard? I know that Harvard's Grad School for Biology is very well-ranked, but I always hear that undergraduates get really ignored by Harvard in favor of educating grad students. How has it been for you, and is this true?</p>

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<p>

I’m a grad student at Harvard (in Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, just across the street from the Molecular and Cellular Biology department), and I can tell you that the feeling among biology grad students at Harvard is that most professors care significantly more about educating undergraduates than they do about graduate students. </p>

<p>Graduate students aren’t really students (we stop taking classes after first or second year) and our major function is to be full-time lab bench monkeys. Professors care about our existence only insofar as we’re producing high-quality research to be turned into publications. We aren’t taking away attention from undergraduates – the undergraduates who work in my lab, or the undergraduates who are my advisor’s freshman advisees, or the undergrads who take my advisor’s class have more consistent access to him than I do.</p>

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<p>You sound pretty jaded mollie. Is Harvard at least decent enough to its graduate students?</p>

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<p>my sister is taking a course at biology and the sciences needed for pre-med. I will tell you that it is EXTREMELY difficult. There is a notion that Harvard keeps a hard bell curve and there are many extremely hard working smart students who work hard. If you can’t keep up, your GPA will fall and most likely, you will be unable to to enter a good grad school. Harvard apparently wants to eliminate most of their pre-med students out of the field because of the intense competition. However, if you are willing to work extremely hard, I’m sure you can do it! (:</p>

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<p>

Sorry. :slight_smile: I’m writing my thesis at the moment to defend on October 29, so I’m at what is probably the maximum point of graduate student jadedness at the moment.</p>

<p>Harvard is good to its graduate students in the same way that it’s good to its undergrads, in that the school provides space, top-notch resources, and other really smart people, so that natural workaholics can happily work themselves into the ground. I am very happy with my graduate school experience (though oh so very tired at the moment!), but it definitely requires the ability to dig one’s heels in and work like a dog sometimes.</p>

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<p>I’m actually concentrating in MCB (I’m a junior), so I’ll give my two cents. </p>

<p>My experience in the MCB department in particular has been very mixed. Most of my problems with the department and the concentration are related to the quality and organization of the classes. But the MCB department/requirements/etc and the broad experience of studying biology at Harvard are quite different, and I’ve enjoyed being a biology student here enough to make up for the aggravations of being an MCB student.</p>

<p>As an MCB concentrator, you’ll have to take four very large intro bio classes (LS1a, LS1b, MCB 52 and MCB 54), and all four of them have serious problems. They’re really big, so they’re often poorly-organized (psets get lost, incorrect answer keys are put online, there’s often a big disconnected between lecture and problem sets and exams since the TFs are writing the assignments and the professors are lecturing, labs are mostly really badly-run and a huge waste of time). Sometimes the lecturers are good, but often they’re not (see: ls1b disaster of 2011). </p>

<p>Basically, they are really big pains, and result in my biology classes consistently being my least favorite and most painful classes of the semester – which really shouldn’t be the case, because I do love my field of choice. I do well enough in them (As or A-s in all), so I’m not just saying this because I’m bitter or anything – they are really annoying. </p>

<p>The good news is that this gets better as you grow out of intro classes. Smaller upper-level classes are often REALLY fantastic, particularly in the SCRB department (as Mollie mentioned! PS, Mollie: my roommate is taking 180 and loves it!); class sizes are smaller, the atmosphere is more relaxed and more about learning instead of getting points on problem sets, and the professors are really invested and really talented.</p>

<p>So if you can bear the tons of intro classes, you’ll have some fun at the end. Unfortunately, this pretty much means that, if you don’t come in decided on being a biology concentrator, you can get very behind and have to keep taking intro classes even into your junior year (like me). It gets old very quickly. </p>

<p>The departmental structure, mood, advising quality, etc really varies a lot from biology dept to biology dept. SCRB and OEB have much better reputations than MCB. I’ve found the MCB advising to be fine – nothing special, but nothing too awful. I chose MCB because the requirements for upper-level courses are flexible (I guess to compensate for all the intro courses?): you can take courses in almost all of the biology departments, as well as math, physics, chemistry, etc for credit. </p>

<p>Most importantly for me, the research opportunities here are really, truly fantastic. It’s super easy to get into a really great lab; there are so many people doing great work here (both at the College and at the Med School), and almost all of them are very amenable to having undergraduates. So if you’re interested in research, or potentially grad school, this is a really great place to be.</p>

<p>All in all, I’d rate my experience pretty highly. If I could do it again, I would probably avoid being an actual biology concentrator and would opt instead for Chem/Phys, since those departments are kinder to undergraduates in a lot of ways, but I wouldn’t give up my biology research experience or involvement in the general biology community for anything. If you do get in and end up attending, I’d recommend that you explore other concentrations first. Even if you’re set on biology, you might find that a department like SCRB or Neurobio is a better fit for you.</p>

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<p>^I’m glad to hear it! I’m really missing teaching this year. But I hope your roommate doesn’t think my advisor is too much of a crazy person. :)</p>

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<p>“the feeling among biology grad students at Harvard is that most professors care significantly more about educating undergraduates than they do about graduate students.”</p>

<p>This is true across many disciplines in my experience. Those of us who have been both undergrads and grad/professional students at Harvard almost universally feel the university offered its very best to us as undergrads.</p>

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<p>^Good luck with the thesis defense!</p>

<p>Everything Elanorci said is so true, especially the part about all the small upper level classes making the wait worth it at the end. The best part about MCB for me is that once you make it through MCB52/54 and 80, it’s like the whole world opens and you get to cherry-pick from all the course lists in all the biology departments.</p>

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<p>^October 29, 2-3 PM, Northwest B103. :)</p>