<p>Just out of curiosity.</p>
<p>What are top 5 most prestigious
majors at Duke.</p>
<p>And (separate ranking) top 5 most popular majors at Duke?</p>
<p>I can't give you the definitive 5 most popular, but I do know Economics is the most popular, and Biomedical Engineering, Psychology, and Biology are popular.</p>
<p>Which Duke's department, although not most popular,
has really good faculty members, and will provide a great
academical experience (perhaps more than bigger departments)?</p>
<p>Prestigious in what sense?</p>
<p>Job market? An eventual PhD program? Impressing other Duke students? Helping pick up women at a bar?</p>
<p>Econ, PubPol, and Biology are, if memory serves, the top three in terms of number of students, in that order.</p>
<p>How about
prestigious in the sense that
the faculty member for that major are amazing
and that major is difficult so that only determined
ones can do and will help in the job market</p>
<p>Faculty amazing... as researchers? As teachers?</p>
<p>The OP is asking which departments are strongest. Some measures of this are the level of faculty output (publications), department size, teaching quality, etc. Take all of these into account.</p>
<p>I'm curious as well. Basically, what departments is Duke known for?</p>
<p>Certainly difficult majors are easy enough to find: engineering, math, physics, and chemistry all come to mind.</p>
<p>Duke definitely has a good amount of engineers!</p>
<p>In my opinion, Duke is pretty well-known in the sciences, especially engineering which is highly ranked. There is generally interesting research and prestigious faculty in that area. A nice thing is that if you are interested in getting research experience, there is plenty of opportunity and undergraduate research is definitely encouraged. I don't know about it's ranking for the humanities though, but I would imagine that is good as well. </p>
<p>Also, as others have mentioned, Public Policy, Biology, and Economics are the most popular majors.</p>
<p>
[quote]
especially engineering which is highly ranked
[/quote]
Well, at least biomedical engineering is.</p>
<p>Duke's English department is also one of the top departments in the country. Some very prominent critics have passed throught it (Eve Sedgwick, Stanley Fish, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the notoriously crusty Houston Baker) and they still have a great faculty.</p>
<p>Just because a department is prestigious doesn't mean going there for undregrad is a great idea. Look at the statistics department - it is one of the best in the world for Bayesian statistics, yet they just started the major a year ago or so and have zero declared majors.</p>
<p>Yeh so to answer your question: Biomedical Engineering.</p>
<p>If you really have to do a hard major that Duke is known for the Biomedical Engineering is what you are looking for. I have to warn you though, you don't want to do BME for those reasons. The reason you want to do BME is because you are excited about engineering things for a medical environment or you just like engineering and medicine. If you are just going to choose your major based on what the school is known for I don't think you are going to be happy with your choice. What you should really do is just think about what you like to do and choose based on that, really any major from Duke is going to be respected.</p>
<p>Just so you know who this is coming from I am a BME who was pretty sure he wanted to be a BME before he even applied to Duke. Also I sometimes wish that I had gone Biology because I love it as well and there isn't nearly enough Bio in BME. (really my only major complaint about the major as a whole, not enough Bio)</p>
<p>BME - top ranked grad/undergrad</p>
<p>Econ - one of the strongest schools at sending kids into top finance jobs, and the faculty is getting totally stacked in terms of elite professors coming to Duke from other schools. Also very active in research.</p>
<p>Public Policy - Another extremely strong program, guaranteed DC internship practically, the graduate program also ranks strong.</p>
<p>HA. If you are looking for amazing faculty and amazingly engaging academics...you need to go/apply to the University of Chicago - academically the best school in the country.</p>
<p>dude, Duke beats Chicago at everything (empirically) besides coldness and non-socialization </p>
<p>Jk. I think?</p>
<p>... Chicago being somewhat more academic than Duke is a plausible argument. But being clearly superior to Princeton and Yale? I think that's a pretty far stretch.</p>
<p>Ehh, Duke kicks Chicago's ass! ^_^</p>