Hey everybody, I’m currently at Miami-Dade College in Florida finishing up my last semester before I transfer. My classes this semester are Intr. to Diff equ, Calculus 3, physics 2 and the lab, and some bs general requirement. I have a 3.95 GPA, my only B is in a Biology course I took. I haven’t been exposed to any research or any extracurriculars, though I did get a job this semester as a physics tutor thanks to my physics professor who vouched for me. I was hoping some of you guys could recommend some good/decent transfer schools for a physics major; preferably an institution that has resources for undergraduates to perform research. I plan to transfer for the upcoming Fall in October/September.
It is nearly impossible for anyone to answer unless you provide more information. There are so many physics programs which take transfers and are quite good. You need to tell us a bit about what kind of school you are looking for. Urban location or college town? Small or large student body? Private or public? In state or out of state? Do you need significant financial aid? What are your goals for after you get your BS?
I don’t particularly care much about the setting, so long as the physics education is good and they provide ample research opportunities. I do in fact require substantial financial aid, as I come from a pretty poor family. As of right now, I am of the mind that I will finish up a BS in physics and transfer into a Phd program right after.
OK, this helps. You probably want to look into your state research universities, UF, FSU, UCF are all quite good in physics and all of them are research universities with plenty of opportunities for undergraduate research. If you want to go out of state, you will need to look at mostly private schools where there is a possibility of merit aid. Some of the less selective [url="<a href=“http://theaitu.org%22%5DAITU%5B/url”>http://theaitu.org"]AITU[/url] schools are worth looking into.
As a physics professor who has advised many undergraduates over the years at my university, Illinois Tech, I can tell you with certainty that you can get an excellent physics education at most universities and most research universities will provide you with a good set of research opportunities. The physics curriculum is pretty standard for undergraduates and so the courses, and even the textbooks, are mostly the same. The most important difference is that smaller programs which are not focused on preparing students for graduate school might not have a full year of quantum theory, electrodynamics, and classical mechanics plus statistical mechanics. These courses are the kind of preparation that is needed for graduate school. Furthermore, if the school has a graduate program, advanced undergraduates may be able to take some graduate courses which will also be good preparation.