<p>I'm a HS senior and I'm probably applying to Vanderbilt RD.</p>
<p>My intended major is chemistry (though this is certainly open to change), and I was wondering how Vandy's chemistry department stacks up against others'. The most popular majors here seem to be social sciences, so I'm wondering if the programs in the physical sciences are good here.</p>
<p>I live in SC, so my state schools are Clemson and S.Carolina, fairly large public universities with pretty good research facilities but overall inferior (imo) academics to Vanderbilt. All else the same, would I be better off at one of these schools studying Chemistry or at Vanderbilt?</p>
<p>Also, if it matters, I'm not planning to go to med school or to pursue a medical-related career.</p>
<p>I would say it’s a solid program but nothing incredibly special. I would imagine a degree in chemistry would mean more from Vandy than from USC or Clemson just because of the name. There’s a lot more to consider than the chemistry programs though!</p>
<p>Yeah, I think the name would matter for Ph.D programs and industry. However, I feel that you could end up fine at say, Clemson as long as you take challenging courses (such as grad. level). Regardless, from what I’ve seen on their (Vandy) chemistry website, it appears to be “strong enough”. As I showed another poster asking about this, it at least has decent research opps. (in fact, the Beckman Scholars program is flat out awesome, and they have it), and these opps. matter for grad. school readiness and competition. Also, what would you consider “strong” academically? Course variety, rigor, what? What’s important to you that would make you choose a private over the state schools you are considering. A look on the departmental website will give you an idea of potential courses to be offered and digging around on google for course materials of some of the major classes that chem. majors must take will give you an idea of the rigor. For example, the material or an exam from gatekeeper…I mean “gateway” courses such as general chemistry and organic can often be found for many schools. Even if it’s old it may give you some idea; recent is better though. You can then try to compare it to what you find digging around at other schools you are considering. You’d seriously be amazed how much you can find out by just digging around on google. Apparently this Vanderbilt organic chemistry professor has a course website for example: [Chem</a> 220A, Section 1: T, R ; 9:35-11:00 am](<a href=“http://as.vanderbilt.edu/chemistry/Rizzo/chem220a/Chem220A.html]Chem”>http://as.vanderbilt.edu/chemistry/Rizzo/chem220a/Chem220A.html)
You can find exams for another (apparently one of the difficult professors. Name is Kaszinski I think): [Teaching[/url</a>]</p>
<p>I don’t know if they still do this or ever did it, but people used to claim these gen. chem exams were standardized (you can have a different instructor, but everyone would receive the same exam), so this isn’t necessarily a potential instructor bias so much as a “time” bias.</p>
<p>Now all you have to do is just maybe do the same searches at other schools of interest and hope they have something that is public. I chose those two courses as comparison points because most freshmen interested in chemistry will take 1 of these 2 first and often have the background from AP/IB, whatever to be able to understand what they are seeing and subsequently understand what may be considered difficult to them and what may not be as difficult. As in, it’ll suggest to you your own readiness or even the style that many instructors employ for instruction or testing.</p>
<p>Pancake: Do you know if Vandy organic chemistry professors teach with powerpoint or something? I saw something called a “class pack” on “K’s” website and it appears to list everything to be covered in class. Just kind of wondering what it was and why it’s there.</p>
<p>I have taken orgo with two different professors here (two semesters). </p>
<p>Are you talking about Sulikowski? She is the most loved orgo professor and uses a “class pack” that she wrote, which is basically a fill-in-the-blank style set of class notes. She does that so you can spend more time listening in the lecture and less time frantically copying down structures and such, and so that everyone knows exactly what material they are responsible for in the vast world of orgo. She teaches usually from a projector using transparency slides of the class pack and fills them in as she goes. I’m not sure what you’re looking at as it shouldn’t be available online, perhaps something from a different prof.</p>
<p>My second teacher taught from a whiteboard, with occasional powerpoint. But that classpack is unique to one professor.</p>
<p>Oh, that’s just weird to me I guess. I think it was kaszinski (apparently he has a “teaching” link on his group website that shows a sample 220b course site) that had the course website public (the Rizzo guy has one publicly open under his “teaching” link as well, but it doesn’t appear he uses a “class pack”). The reason what you say is weird to me is because our teachers stress a solid amount of content, but it’s more about application, so the better professors will spend a whole class delving very deeply into the dynamics of say 1 or 2 reactions. And most use the chalkboard (only two professors use powerpoint/overhead and that type of thing, and one of them really just uses it as a supplement). To make sure we pay attention, the better ones (4 of like 6 or 7) just use some level of socratic method (there are two extremely high quality instructors. One uses more of a hybrid lecture/socratic method. Kind of like a “socratic-guided lecture” where it’s clear that everything is perfectly planned. My professor was the other who used basically a pure socratic method and a pbl type of approach where you may get called to the board to solve some ridiculous problem. Cold calls were much more frequent in my class than the other and the class would basically be framed with a certain topic in mind and the details that are covered about that topic are essentially controlled by the class discussion). Needless to say, students pay the price with insanely difficult exams compared to most schools, but whatever, I suppose it was worth it (2nd semester was crazy!). It got me to like chemistry lol (darn sure prepped me for grad. classes). Something tells me that the difference may come from the fact that section sizes were pretty small (in a relative sense? I think). Are the classes there big?</p>
<p>Regardless, I don’t think this idea of the “class pack” is uncommon. I may have seen something similar on one of Harvard’s websites (in fact, I think several of the chem and natural science courses that have a stable instructor: as in one that teaches the course several years consecutively). Seems like it could be a reasonable solution for a course with large enrollment that stresses lots of content.</p>
<p>Yep lot of content. After covering orgo theory, it’s into reactions. Here’s the general reaction, here’s three examples, here’s the mechanism. On to the next one.</p>
<p>Orgo here is highly focused on mechanisms and synthesis, which means learning a ton of reactions. Perhaps because many of our professors do researching involving synthesis. There are plenty of other classes in the chem department if you want more depth into organic chem.</p>
<p>Most professors don’t baby students into paying attention in big lectures. You want to sit on Facebook in class or just not show up, your loss, you’ll pay for it on the exam. I think our orgo lectures are anywhere from 100-200 students, so many pre-meds here. Anyways, this is digressing.</p>
<p>Ours is the same, but I think that we just stress more conceptual knowledge (much more “derive this model for this crazy scenario you’ve never really seen before or explain how this drug works…” appear on exams because of the exhaustive detail in which a single reaction is covered. You end up learning stuff on the damned exam lol) according to what I’m seeing. I don’t consider it babysitting necessarily, because research often shows that more engaged learning methods can drive the ability of students to do higher level problems up significantly, whereas pure lecturing is more conducive to memorization. Even with the socratic method, you have the choice of screwing around or slacking off (these will usually be the Cs, Ds, and Fs). The only difference is, if you want to contribute you must come prepared (you need to be studying frequently. My class actually had quizzes every week or two as well). But yeah, ours seems far different (range is like from 45-90 per section). You can take a look if you want: <a href=“https://drive.google.com/?urp=http://www.google.com/url?sa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26sou&pli=1&authuser=0#my-drive[/url]”>https://drive.google.com/?urp=http://www.google.com/url?sa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26sou&pli=1&authuser=0#my-drive</a></p>
<p>I think I made them public. The different methods that universities employ to weed students out with this course is interesting.</p>
<p>As a chemical engineering major, I took my fair share of chemistry classes. While I do not have anything to compare the courses too, I believe the professors to be top notch. While I was taken Rosenthal’s class she was featured on the national news several times for her work.</p>
<p>That being said, if you are not planning to go on to med school or graduate school, I do not think it matters much unless you want your degree coming from a more prestigious school.</p>
<p>Appears the NRC can perhaps lend some idea to the research intensity of the chemistry department at various schools (as it is ranking doctoral program and scholar and faculty general outlook on the program and the faculty involved in it): Actually appears Vanderbilt and U.South Carolina Columbia do quite well in chemistry (when it comes to things that are primarily based on research intensity): [NRC</a> Rankings Overview: Chemistry - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“NRC Rankings Overview: Chemistry”>NRC Rankings Overview: Chemistry)</p>
<p>*Note: Be careful looking at the “R-rank”, because it looks like it’s prone to halo effect (as in, prestige. So a dept. can be outperforming another in every other category, but do poorly there because it doesn’t “look like” the place that is generally seen as more prestigious overall). Also, watch out for the “students” category. Numbers could be lower (I mean higher, as in 23 vs. 14 with 23 being considered “worse”) than expected there perhaps because some programs may generally be more rigorous or have higher standards. For example, Stanford has strange numbers here and good numbers elsewhere.</p>
<p>However, you have an undergrad. experience to think of outside of chemistry, so you’ll need to come up with schools that will meet you needs/desires. If you visit Vandy and other schools, try to sit in on certain classes or something.</p>