<p>Yes big name profs. teach freshman seminars and sometimes cores as well.</p>
<p>I'll go into a little more detail, since I REALLY do not want to study for organic chem.</p>
<p>Some big name profs teach (usually large) intro classes, others don't. Notable profs you could have freshman year include:
Stephen Pinker - teaches a core/intro psych class
Michael Sandel - teaches a moral reasoning core
Greg Mankiw - teaches intro econ (core), but really only gives 4-5 lectures/semester
Louis Menand - teaches an intro humanities class</p>
<p>Multiple Nobel Prize winners (and Larry Summers!) teach freshman seminars. All of these profs have office hours/available via email/etc.</p>
<p>I put my major down as history.. so I'm more into humanities than math/science. I think I'm more of a city person, so that's why I'm thinking that maybe Boston will be a better fit for me than Princeton. However, I've visited both schools and I know that Princeton's campus is gorgeous! </p>
<p>Does anyone know specific things about Harvard or Princeton's history or international relations (which I'm considering also) department? I would really love some insights.</p>
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[quote]
Harvard's resources are $29 billion compared to $9.5 for Princeton, so even if you believe the grad and professional students figure in, the per student funding is still greater. Oh, and the law school has it's own endowment of $840 million, the Business School $2.1 billion, etc. As an undergrad, you have access to the entire Faculty of Arts and Sciences, not shared with any of the professional schools.
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<p>You, sadly, have your facts quite wrong. Princeton's per-student endowment is higher than Harvard's by quite a chunk, $1,679,380 to $1,291,051 to be exact. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_colleges_and_universities_by_endowment%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_colleges_and_universities_by_endowment</a>.
Princeton's endowment is over $13 billion, and Harvard's is not quite $29 billion, (same site for reference). Not that it matters SO much, but get your information straight before posting.</p>
<p>yp4me, Princeton is only between half and hour to an hour away from both New Yok and Philly. Not that that makes it in a city, but it's pretty close. Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs offers one of the best international relations programs in the world. The history department boasts several big-name professors, James McPherson and Bernard Lewis for example. I'm sure Harvard has amazing intl. relations and history departments as well, but I don't know much about them.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that having a "big-name" prof teach a large intro class isn't always a good thing. Sure, it's cool that you get to listen to a famous person who will be obligated to read your e-mails and talk to you. However, these people are big names because of their intelligence and research accomplishments, not their teaching ability. Some are wonderful teachers who care a great deal about their classes, and some are the exact opposite. Just remember, they have tenure. Nothing short of academic dishonesty, inappropriate relations with a student, or a felony is going to cost them their job, so the motivation do teach well has to come from within.</p>
<p>One nice thing about Harvard is that you have a five day shopping period before you have to register for courses. So you can get a pretty good idea of what a professor is like before you are committed to the course.</p>
<p>It is certainly true that big name professors are not always good teachers, but according to what I hear from most of my classmates, professors like Reinhardt are excellent lecturers (Reinhardt, in particular, was selected by a student committee for a Class Day speech a few years ago). You should drop by an ECO 100 lecture during a visit and see for yourself.</p>
<p>Princeton also has a very long shopping period - some two weeks. And actually, it is possible to drop a course even after the midterm, so there is a lot of flexibility and a lot of time to see if a course is right for you.</p>
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<p>"I feel that one could learn much more from a Princeton undergraduate-focused education than from a Harvard education"</p>
<p>Can someone explain to me what it means for a college to be more "undergraduate-focused," and how this impacts a college student's life day-to-day?</p>
<p>The best explanation I've ever gotten -- a weak one -- is that Harvard University has professional schools. But how does a med school professor, paid by the med school endowment, teaching a med school course to med school students, on the med school campus, diffuse the "focus" on undergrads at Harvard College? It's a mystery to me.</p>
<p>Which university has a better undergraduate engineering program - Princeton or Harvard?</p>
<p>Harvard's engineering program is in a state of flux. They are planning on hiring 30 new professors over the next ten years. Hard to say how that will effect the upcoming crop of students and one of the reasons Mathson isn't positive about attending Harvard. (Other choice is School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon.) <a href="http://www.seas.harvard.edu/newsandevents/pressreleases/121206_SEAS.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.seas.harvard.edu/newsandevents/pressreleases/121206_SEAS.html</a></p>
<p>One meaning of a college being more "undergraduate-focused" is that school resources--courses, professors, research funding, etc.--are primarily geared toward undergraduates, rather than having to be split among various schools. Especially for competitive resources like research, internship, and summer funding, this could make a big difference.</p>
<p>For Harvard, I think the large endowment and other quantitative measures of "resources" do not take into account that, for example, the med school endowment doesn't affect the college endowment (and therefore doesn't affect undergrads). And the presence of the business school doesn't automatically mean students can take business school classes (which could mean that professors in these schools are not necessarily available).</p>
<p>A Harvard person can perhaps clarify some of what I've said above. But at Princeton, undergrads get the vast majority of University support, programs, classes, and any other resource you can think of.</p>
<p>As for engineering, I doubt you will find a better engineering program at Harvard than Princeton. Other than maybe Cornell, Princeton has long had the strongest engineering and physical sciences departments of the Ivies.</p>
<p>It has been said before, the undergrads are the rock stars at Harvard. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is theirs, with a very few grad students. All of the professional schools are at other locations and have separate faculties and administrations. The President of Harvard (at least Summers) lived in the Yard in a freshman dorm. You won't find very many people that have actually attended Harvard that complain about undergrad focus. It's a red herring from schools trying to compete. Engineering has been a weak spot at Harvard in the past, hence the new emphasis with new money thrown at it. With Harvard's resources and its math and science depth, I have no doubt it will be a very strong program in short order. I also have no doubt that Princeton has a very fine engineering program based on a long legacy.</p>
<p>You haven't answered my question about how this supposedly impacts undergraduate life; you have only repeated the same theories without showing why they are true.</p>
<p>"which could mean that professors in these schools are not necessarily available"</p>
<p>But so what? They're not included in the student/faculty ratio. And it's not like business school professors are available at Princeton. Undergrads can use the library over at HBS if they need to, and if you're doing advanced psychology research or something you CAN contact those professors (I know a kid who did a project over there), but professors of finance or marketing are not usually germane to a liberal arts education.</p>
<p>The Harvard College students share professors and departments ONLY with grad students in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which is the oldest, largest, and richest faculty at Harvard. In fact, Harvard FAS has ~2400 graduate students and ~6500 undergraduates. Princeton has 2295 graduate students and 4790 undergraduates this year. So comparing arts & sciences across the board, Harvard undergrads outnumber the grad students who matter almost 3-to-1 vs. Princeton's 2-to-1. But I've never heard anyone claim that Princeton kids can't get the attention of their English professors because the English professors are so busy with their (relatively more numerous) grad students. Why do you insist over and over that it's so different at Harvard when the Harvard kids are telling you it's not?</p>
<p>Actually a goodly number of the courses at the school of Architecture and Design are cross numbered as VES courses. I took their entire architectural history sequence and at least one planning course. The architecture school and library are both right there if undergrads are interested. (Unlike the B-school or med school). But yes in general each school floats it's own boat moneywise and I don't think there's too much cross registering.</p>
<p>Princeton for sure, IMHO</p>
<p>
High school kid from Russia, now there's an authoritative opinion.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>High school kid from Russia, now there's an authoritative opinion.<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Sorry? Any problems with Russia? </p>
<p>And, by the way, Harvard student...</p>
<p>
[quote]
In fact, Harvard FAS has ~2400 graduate students and ~6500 undergraduates. Princeton has 2295 graduate students and 4790 undergraduates this year. So comparing arts & sciences across the board, Harvard undergrads outnumber the grad students who matter almost 3-to-1 vs. Princeton's 2-to-1.
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Thanks for the clarification. So the grad-undergrad ratio is apparently more "favorable" for Harvard. But since Princeton's absolute numbers are still smaller, I would say that Princeton students still get more attention. Do you happen to know FAS's endowment? Then we can also have a resources-per-student comparison (though apparently Princeton is already more favorable in this measure even considering the entire Harvard endowment...).</p>
<p>Would you agree that a Harvard Med School student receives more attention from the Med School than undergrads do from FAS?</p>
<p>"Would you agree that a Harvard Med School student receives more attention from the Med School than undergrads do from FAS?"</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I don't see how it's relevant unless you're applying to med school. If you're an 18-year-old picking a college, what does this have to do with the decision?</p></li>
<li><p>Speaking as a Harvard Law alum, HAYLE NO. There's absolutely no comparison -- the undergrads are treated like movie stars compared to the grads. Pick just about any measure, from housing to food to class size to location to staff support, and I was getting a better deal in college than in law school.</p></li>
</ol>