<p>I'm trying to decide between Rice and UVa. I plan to major history, English, philosophy, or political science. I'm an OOS student at UVa, so the tuition at both schools are relatively the same.</p>
<p>I'm apprehensive about Rice because I read that it's more science-focused than UVa is. Does Rice attract good humanities professors? Basically, what does each school bring to the table for a student majoring in the humanities? I'm interested in attending law school, so I'd also like to know about law school matriculation and pre-law programs at Rice.</p>
<p>I dont know much about law/humanities programs but Rice is definitely not more science-focused. It is a great school overall with all departments being great in their fields. Some people may say its science focused because of its location next to one of the largest medical centers in the nation</p>
<p>This question has been asked hundreds of times, even earlier this week. If you don’t get that many responses, I suggest using the “search this forum” option on the top of the page and type in humanities and see what you get.</p>
<p>These are my impressions (however, I’m not an expert in the humanities). First off, most Rice students end up graduating with the humanities or social sciences degree because these majors tend to be “easier” (of course, humanities/social sciences majors tend to be less difficult than math/science/engineering majors at almost all universities). Humanities/social sciences programs tend to be strong at Rice. I know there is a Writing Fellowship over the summer that pays $2,000 for you to write a 20 page paper on a topic of interest. Douglas Brinkley, one of the nation’s top historians, teaches at Rice… google him. Poli sci dept has some great professors. However, I’m only a freshman, so hopefully an upperclassmen majoring in the humanities/social sciences can chime in.</p>
<p>“First off, most Rice students end up graduating with the humanities or social sciences degree because these majors tend to be ‘easier’ (of course, humanities/social sciences majors tend to be less difficult than math/science/engineering majors at almost all universities).”</p>
<p>Yes, I would never say a humanities/social science degree is “easier” to obtain than a math/science/engineering degree. That’s very subjective, and I imagine every field at Rice has challenging aspects. If anything (inserting my own opinion now!) I would say that degrees in the humanities/social sciences have become increasingly under-valued in our society lately.</p>
<p>Still, the faculty and resources in most of the humanities at Rice are simply not as strong as in most of the sciences. Rice is lacking in really top-notch humanistic scholarship.
This does not mean that undergraduates in the humanities don’t get great educations; I’ve consistently heard great things, in fact. But if you want to be around earthshaking humanistic endeavor, Rice probably isn’t the place for you.</p>
<p>Larry Sabato heads up the poli sci dept at UVA and if you’re a potential poli sci major you must know who he is. Truly exciting, but what isn’t so exciting is the size of the classes at UVA. It makes it infinitely more difficult to develop close ties with profs, and that’s such a vital part of what happens at Rice. The accessibility of the Rice social sciences faculty is incredible and this rapport leads to research jobs early on, summer mentorships, etc. Just getting into the classes you want at UVA is so much more difficult than at Rice. UVA makes sense as a grad school, but you’ll get a superb undergraduate education and access to a non-partisan think tank at Rice!</p>
<p>The UVA class sizes at this site look pretty friendly. How can you have such a discrepancy in the faculty: student ratio … I wonder how many classes at UVA are taught by TA’s …</p>
<p>“Still, the faculty and resources in most of the humanities at Rice are simply not as strong as in most of the sciences.”</p>
<p>This is something I hear time after time, and it usually comes from biased science or engineering majors who are arguing that humanities majors get less out of going to Rice. As a current political science major at Rice, I can assure you that the political science department is full of amazing professors, who just don’t get as much press because people are focused on lauding professors from the science and engineering departments. For example, Rice has Professor Ambler, who used to be the head of the Political Science department and is still around as a Professor Emeritus. He’s still teaching, is amazing, and you can take a course with him as early as the first semester of your freshmen year.</p>
<p>As for class size, I can’t say what the real numbers are off the top of my head, but most of the upper level poli sci courses seem to generally have around ten students enrolled, except in special circumstances where visiting professors are teaching a course.</p>
<p>As for TAs, there are few if any humanities and social sciences classes taught by them at Rice. Actually, that’s pretty much true across the board; even in science classes, the TA might lead labs or discussion sections, but almost ever class is taught by an actual professor.</p>
<p>As someone who has taken a couple humanities classes so far, I can tell you that my experience has been good so far. Likewise my experience in the social sciences has been fantastic. While these departments may not be the strongest at Rice, there are plenty of good classes (Ambler’s is a great one, as mentioned above) and the professors are good. I think you would have a positive experience at Rice.</p>
<p>This kind of goes along with humanities… did anyone get a call from the dean of humanities??? I just got one and it was so out of the blue, but I’m really thinking of Rice just because I feel they put so much effort into attracting students and I feel history is pretty strong at Rice, at least professor-wise… THIS IS SO HARD of a decision!!!</p>
<p>@ Riceward: I’m in no way belittling humanities/social sciences majors. I’m currently a social science major myself (although I might switch to natural sciences). Also, I put “easier” in quotes if you read my earlier post in order to indicate that “easier” is a vague term in this sense. Anyway, I’ll appreciate it if you tone down the sarcasm toward me. Just cuz you don’t agree with the statement doesn’t mean its garbage.</p>
<p>lilapense, I’m fairly unbiased on this question. I’m a graduate student in music. But I’m not talking about reputation within Rice, or even about quality of teaching at all. I’m talking about scholarship.</p>
DD was a humanities fellow at Rice and got some nice money and work with a prof, plus attended some cool lectures/symposiums. She also got a travel scholarship from Rice that paid for a year of study abroad AFTER she graduated - and she was able to change her plans as her focus changed with that experience. There are so many resources and funding at Rice for scholarship (get paid to write a paper!), travel, research, and supported work and internships. There are just more resources for the limited number of students - resources that are available for superstars at big public U’s, but hard to come by if you aren’t very assertive. At Rice - there are just MORE resources for LESS students.</p>