<p>as in the way they teach. For example, Columbia and Cornell are very practical, but Brown is theoretical</p>
<p>All of the top schools have elements of both. It really depends on the subject, course, and professor. You can’t generalize across an entire school.</p>
<p>It’s said that what you retain after you forget all your schoolwork at college is your education. That being said, UPenn will provide most students with an excellent education.</p>
<p>I graduated awhile back but it was extremely theoretical while I attended. I did many research projects in my major.</p>
<p>I did arrange a “practical” internship but that was the only practical experience I received there.</p>
<p>@45 Percenter: actually you can generalize. You have to look at the types of professors a school has, as well as the type of people the school attracts. For example, UChicago’s lack of an engineering school even though it is a highly wealthy and accomplished university represents a departure from practical knowledge. NYU’s IR department, headed by one of the foremost advocates of quantitative politics, teaches a mathematically-based IR program that can be directly applied to real life situations. However, JHU focuses on theoretical IR, as is demosntrated by their focus on history and greek philosophy at the undergraduate level of IR. THose things can’t be directly applied and so it is less practical.</p>
<p>Of course certain fields lend itself to one type. For example, no matter what school you go to, engineering is going to be practical and philosophy is going to be theoretical. Regardless, there is a general trend in colleges</p>
<p>^ You’re citing specific examples within specific schools. Your original question, however, was about entire universities in general. Generalizing about entire universities–especially comprehensive research universities–is not appropriate. For example, you cite Chicago’s lack of engineering as, apparently, an indication of its overall “theoretical” nature. But I have no doubt that in Chicago’s business and medical schools, for example, there is some very “practical” teaching going on. Similarly, while Penn’s Wharton and Nursing Schools perhaps offer more “practical” courses than the typical liberal arts program (and even they have a significant amount of academic and theoretical research and teaching happening among the faculty), Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences has as many theoretical courses as–if not more than–any other liberal arts school of comparable size. And SAS is, by far, the largest academic component of Penn.</p>
<p>Specifically, there are about 6,300 undergrads in Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences, and about 4,200 undergrads in Penn’s other schools (Engineering, Wharton, and Nursing). So, what is the “general trend” at Penn?</p>
<p>Considering that CC is a widely undergraduate forum, I thought it was implied I meant undergraduate schools. Second, I already said to disregard majors that lend itself to one type of learning.</p>
<p>^ Well, to put it simply, the theory/practice ratio of teaching at Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences will be comparable to that at the undergraduate liberal arts components of its peers (Ivies, Duke, Stanford, Chicago, etc.). In general, you won’t find an undergraduate class in, e.g., English, Art History, Philosophy, or Biology at Penn to be taught more or less “theoretically” than a comparable class at Columbia, Brown, Duke, or Chicago. The content and the way they are taught will be quite similar across comparable schools. And to that extent, I think that the premise in your first post that “Columbia and Cornell are very practical, but Brown is theoretical,” is quite flawed, if you are talking about comparable departments and courses at all 3 schools.</p>
<p>Of course, between disciplines and schools at all of these universities, there will be significant differences in the ratios of theoretical to practical teaching, so that, e.g., an Accounting or Finance class in Wharton will be much more practical and less theoretical than a Philosphy class at Brown. But when comparing apples-to-apples–say, comparable Philosophy classes at Brown and Penn–there will be no significant difference.</p>
<p>45percenter - I think portions of your analysis are a bit misleading, and this discussion requires a bit more general input.</p>
<p>To push your analogy along, I agree that, when comparing “apples to apples” at two top schools, the differences will be minimal. A philosophy class at Brown or Penn or Chicago or Columbia will be quite similar. </p>
<p>The key difference between schools, however, is to consider the general array of fruits available in the basket, if you will. At Penn, you have philosophy courses and management courses and marketing courses and theoretical physics courses and engineering courses and architecture courses. For the most part, students in any college at Penn can dabble in or try out courses in other schools. The very availability of these courses can change the tone and culture of a school.</p>
<p>On the other hand, some of Penn’s closest peers, such as Columbia and Chicago, don’t offer nearly the breadth of practical courses for undergrads offered at Penn. When I was at Chicago, in fact, there were t-shirts that read “That’s great in practice, but how does it work in theory?” Up until very recently (as Chicago has opened up its grad schools to undergrads a bit more), there was simply no opportunity to take a class in marketing or accounting. Moreover, Chicago students interested in design or engineering or whatever have no outlets for this. I’d imagine students at Brown or Yale are in a similar boat. </p>
<p>On the other hand, some of the more theoretical schools have built up particularly rich histories in certain disciplines, and therefore may offer more “apples” than are offered at peer schools. For example, Penn has a wonderful history program, but if I had the opportunity to study history as an undergraduate, Yale may be an even better choice - their history department is widely regarded to be the premier department in the country. </p>
<p>All this being said, the array of schools and courses offered on campus can change the general tone and culture of a school. Penn offers fine theoretical courses - as good as anywhere in the country. At the same time, as some of its peer schools don’t offer any practical courses at all, that may make the feeling of “theory” more particularly acute at those other schools. Similarly, schools with particularly focused practical approaches may have even more of a “practical” feel. </p>
<p>I say this having attended Chicago as an undergrad, and noting the unifying theme of “how does this work in theory?” that permeated campus. Penn, on the other hand, tends to be much more disparate and laissez-faire in terms of the academic inclinations of its students, from what I observed. Some students at Penn were intensely focused on theoretical physics, others were accounting whizzes, others were promising young engineers, others were superb musical theorists who took classes at the world-renown Curtis Institute. </p>
<p>That’s not at all to say one approach is better than the other - it’s just two different approaches. Generally, when I meet a UChicago grad, I know that this individual has some interest in a core curriculum, and, more often than not, tends to like theoretical stuff. One of the pleasures of meeting a Penn grad is that, quite simply, I have no idea (initially) what the individual’s academic inclinations may be. I may be talking to a physicist or someone who focused on becoming an accountant at KPMG. </p>
<p>Each approach is great, but I think it is useful to parse a bit more finely between the top schools than you did in your post.</p>
<p>^ Cue7, I agree with everything you said (I usually do ;)), but if you look at the orignal post and the apparent intent of the OP, I don’t think he/she was asking about the overall character or academic diversity of the schools. Instead, as evinced in post #1, he/she seems to be seeking a generalization of how professors approach teaching (theoretical vs. practical) at each of the various universities. Such a generalization cannot accurately be made (such as his/her conclusion that “Columbia and Cornell are very practical, and Brown is theoretical”).</p>
<p>Your analysis, on the other hand, is significantly more nuanced (and accurate), but is not the gross generalization that the OP seems to be seeking about “the way they teach” at Penn, and whether Penn “is a theoretical or practical school.”</p>
<p>And by the way, while the History Department at Yale may be more highly ranked than Penn’s (although not by much on a relative basis, as Penn’s History Department is generally ranked among the top 10 or so in the country), that doesn’t mean that a Yale professor’s approach to teaching a particular undergraduate course will be more “theoretical” than the approach of a Penn professor teaching a comparable course at Penn. And that was precisely my point (and also yours :)).</p>
<p>A couple of grace notes, against the background of near complete agreement with what Cue7 and 45 Percenter said.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Students reading this thread should understand that talking about the University of Chicago in this context is a little misleading, because it really is an outlier in American higher education. Unlike almost any other college, it really DOES have an orientation towards theory over practice, and that affects the kinds of students who go there, the kinds of courses offered, and the way those courses are taught. And, of course, even there you would find a huge variation from one course and one professor to another, and department to department. But the fact that it makes sense to talk about Chicago as a theory-oriented college does not mean that it makes sense to evaluate the curriculum at other colleges, like Penn, on a theory-vs.-practice basis.</p></li>
<li><p>Except in two respects:</p></li>
<li><p>First, the higher you get in the academic food chain, the more theory you are going to tend to find mixed in with everything. Institutions that are highly selective in who they admit, and that see themselves as training elites, tend to rate the educational value of teaching theory much more highly that institutions whose primary role is employment qualification for average students. So there isn’t really any difference among Penn, Columbia, and Brown in the extent that they teach theory, but there is a meaningful difference between all of them and, say, Millersville State University, Buffalo State College, or Central Florida University. Not that you can’t take theoretical courses at those schools, but you may have to seek them out.</p></li>
<li><p>Second, shadowzoid might have asked a slightly different question and gotten more of an answer, or at least provoked a little debate. The teaching of theory vs. practice does not differ meaningfully among elite colleges, but the interest level of the students in theory vs. practice does differ. Not in any absolute way (except, perhaps, at Chicago, which pretty much does everything it can to ensure that students who do not like to approach topics via theory don’t apply, don’t get accepted, don’t enroll, and don’t stay if they happen to slip through all of the prior filters). But I think there is a meaningful difference in the vibe at Penn vs. Brown or Yale in this respect. Penn has a bunch of students (lots of engineers, nurses, many but not all of the Whartonites) whose educational goals and curricula are very specific and practical, much more so than at Brown or Yale, and that affects the experience of other students as well. I think students at Penn whose interests are highly theoretical have no lack of mentors or peers, but they tend to think of themselves as being in a minority, part of a subculture. And the engineers at Yale feel the same way. (Yale DOES have engineers, by the way. Just not a whole lot of them. As of a few years ago, the ratio of undergraduate engineering majors to engineering faculty was 1:1.)</p></li>
<li><p>Some of the posts above don’t draw what I would consider an accurate line between theory and practice in an academic context. At least as I understand it, quantitative poli sci can be (and usually is) highly theoretical, although it may be amenable to practical applications. Using mathematical models to analyze things is an enormous hallmark of theory and abstraction. And at the same time, an historical approach could be extremely empirical and anti-theoretic.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Ah, 45percenter, I didn’t read the original post closely enough - and I agree with you completely. In terms of the “teaching” I don’t think there is much difference at all between the schools. The only difference manifests itself in the actual types of classes that are offered.</p>
<p>Also, JHS, it appears that Chicago is not nearly as much of an outlier as it once was, but that discussion is certainly more appropriate to be had in the UChicago forum.</p>
<p>(As a quick note, I was shocked - shocked! - to find out that Chicago undergrads can now take marketing or financial accounting classes at the business school, and that we have an entire undergrad advising staff dedicated to helping students find jobs in journalism.)</p>
<p>
This is essentially true, but keep in mind that the number of undergrads in Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences is significantly higher (by 1,000) than the number of undergrads in Yale College (and roughly equal to the number at Brown). Also, the number of undergrads in Penn’s College is more than 50% larger than the total number of undergrads in Wharton, SEAS, and Nursing *combined<a href=“6,304%20in%20the%20College;%201,986%20in%20Wharton;%201,641%20in%20SEAS;%20556%20in%20Nursing;%20see%20%20%5Burl=http://www.upenn.edu/about/facts.php]Penn:%20Penn%20Facts[/url]”>/i</a>. So that in actuality, liberal-arts undergrads (and I realize that not all of these are students “whose interests are highly theoretical”) at Penn are anything but a minority.</p>
<p><a href=“As%20a%20quick%20note,%20I%20was%20shocked%20-%20shocked!%20-%20to%20find%20out%20that%20Chicago%20undergrads%20can%20now%20take%20marketing%20or%20financial%20accounting%20classes%20at%20the%20business%20school,%20and%20that%20we%20have%20an%20entire%20undergrad%20advising%20staff%20dedicated%20to%20helping%20students%20find%20jobs%20in%20journalism.”>quote=Cue7</a>
[/quote]
Chicago should combine those and become a feeder for The Wall Street Journal and CNBC. :p</p>
<p>Hah! That would be the day, 45-percenter - when UChicago grads stop dreaming of becoming the next Kant or Foucault and dream of becoming the next (sanitized) version of Murdoch.</p>
<p>Penn is by far considered the most pre-professional Ivy, for obvious reasons. For the most part, everything is about landing a job</p>
<p>When a Penn representative visited my HS, she directly stated, and heavily emphasized, that Penn believes in a philosophy of “connecting the intellectual with the practical”. </p>
<p>I have to wonder if you also heard someone say this or read this somewhere?</p>
<p>^ dancingdoctor, as I recall, you’re a freshman in the Nursing School? While everything may have been about landing a job in your one semester in the Nursing School :), there are 6400 undergrads in the College whose general level of preprofessional interest is quite comparable to that at the other Ivies (and other top schools). While Nursing and Wharton certainly impact the preprofessional atmosphere on Penn’s campus (as discussed in several posts above), the career placement statistics for the College are quite similar to those of the undergraduate liberal-arts components of the other Ivies (several of which are significantly smaller than Penn’s College). The types and distribution of majors among students in Penn’s College are also comparable to those in the other Ivy undergraduate liberal-arts components.</p>
<p>Not to nit-pick, but I think that Penn’s 6400 liberal-arts undergrads sometimes get a bum rap as supposedly more “preprofessional” (whatever that means) than their counterparts at other Ivies, and I think that’s neither fair nor accurate. Again, that peception is no doubt due to the presence of Wharton and Nursing, but I find it hard to believe that the undergrads at Dartmouth or Princeton, for example, are generally less “preprofessional” than the 6400 undergrads in Penn’s College.</p>
<p>I think historically Penn has been more practical given its high-powered, pre-professional, and technically separated undergraduate institutions (which are all interconnected but you are nonetheless FORCED to decide which one you’ll apply to). It’s also located in a city, meaning that the nature of Philadelphia and its plentiful resources, businesses, jobs, etc. also lend a more practical atmosphere to Penn. However, I have noticed a recent improvement in CAS, as well as more humanistic related thoughts/efforts/classes, so I do believe Penn has also developed an interesting “theoretical” aspect to its education and atmosphere, albeit one that is less prominent.</p>