<p>I went to a liberal arts college (LAC).</p>
<p>Jkeil911 is right in that this question is very broad and would take a long time to answer. The short version is that LACs are typically small four-year institutions (generally with less than 4,000 students) where the focus is primarily or exclusively on undergraduate education. Professors are hired primarily as teachers; they do some research but one of the goals of that research is to train undergraduates in it. They typically teach between 2 and 4 classes a semester and expect a lot of one on one work with undergrads. Classes are typically small in size (<=20). Majors are usually limited to the typical liberal arts and sciences, but some colleges have more expanded offerings.</p>
<p>Universities are typically institutions that, in addition to educating undergraduates, also offer graduate degrees (MS and PhD/doctoral degrees plus some professional ones). They can range in size, but the undergrad population usually ranges from medium-sized (~5,000) to very large (40,000+). Professors are usually hired to either primarily do research OR do a combination of research and teaching, but they don’t always see teaching as their primary goal or motivation. They may teach 1 to 3 classes a semester; some professors don’t teach at all. Class sizes can range; lower-level introductory courses can be small or large but tend to be medium-sized (50-100 students). Upper-level seminars can be quite small and are often capped at 15 or 20 students.</p>
<p>I don’t know that the generalization about students is true. It’s very true that at LACs all or most attention is focused on undergrads, because there’s no one else there. But at universities, it just depends on the university itself. Some universities - like Princeton and Rice - are noted for their very good undergraduate education. And I go to an Ivy League university with about twice as many grad students as undergrads, and I know some professors who do invest a good bit of time and energy into developing undergraduate course offerings and mentoring undergraduate researchers. So it just depends on where you go.</p>
<p>I’m going to do what I don’t normally do (because I’m biased, and I freely admit it!) and say that if you are really sure about majoring in neuroscience, a university is probably a better choice. First of all, most LACs don’t offer neuroscience - SOME do, and some of the ones that don’t may offer a neuroscience concentration in the psychology or biology departments. Neuroscience is basically a combination of bio and psych, so you could double-major or design your own major with the assistance of two professors if you really wanted an LAC experience. But for the undecided or the student who doesn’t care, most neuroscience programs are offered at research universities. Furthermore, if grad school is on your horizon, professors at universities are far more likely to be doing neuroscience research. The facilities at small LACs aren’t usually the most cutting-edge (due to cost) for brain imaging and psychophysiological research, so you’re much more likely to get experience with an fMRI scanner at a big university than a small LAC.</p>
<p>With that said there are small LACs that are in consortia with large national research universities that may make neuroscience majors and research more accessible, like Swarthmore and Haverford and Bryn Mawr (with Penn) and Amherst and Mount Holyoke and Smith (with UMass). Others are located close to large national universities, like Wellesley or Simmons with MIT and Harvard.</p>
<p>But remember that some of the most well-known universities’ undergrad divisions are quite small. Columbia, for example, only has 6,000 undergraduates. I think Rice has something like 3,000.</p>