<p>I am interested in both Physics and Chemistry and really have fallen in love with the ISP at Northwestern. I feel as if it would be a perfect fit for me and my interests, since I love the explanations of Math in the Sciences. But, Wash U would be about $18,000 a year cheaper since my dad is a professor there, and I am also considering UChicago. </p>
<p>Of these three, none of them have a program like ISP, but is it worth it? I do intend to go into grad school or perhaps med school, so how does ISP do at placing its graduates into their desired grad schools or med schools? In addition, does anyone with inside knowledge of ISP have any information? Such as the ease of finding undergraduate research there? </p>
<p>Ok, i am a freshman at Nu, and ive seen the ISP kids. Ill give you some details that you might not get, but in the end its up to you if you find it worthwhile to come here</p>
<ol>
<li>ISP is hard and intense, but people who it was meant for fall in love with it.</li>
<li>ISP has really good placement into grad schools. There are premeds in ISP</li>
<li>theres an isp house on campus which is cool</li>
<li>its really easy to find undergrad research here. theres so much stuff going on, just email a professor and ask to be a part of what theyre doing.</li>
</ol>
<p>My son looked at the ISP schedule earlier tonight and, if we understand it correctly, there are a lot of fixed requirements – so many, in fact, that over 3 full years of classes are needed just for ISP and his computer science major. Add in the general distribution requirements and there’s nothing left over for electives.</p>
<p>That’s a ridiculous straitjacket and a major turn-off for him since he’s used to setting his own agenda even in high school. Why don’t they just double the speed in which they cover the material, and free up some some electives?</p>
<p>By contrast, two of the other colleges he is considering, Brown and Amherst, have open curriculums where he could triple-major in math/physics/cs and still have room left over to explore the liberal arts domain.</p>
<p>I am very certain ISP is covering more materials than whatever Brown/Amherst would throw at him. ISP is known for its intensity and advanced treatment to the materials, not for being slow.
ISP program churns out more prestigious scholarship winners than another other program on a per capita basis (3 Goldwater winners last year!). You don’t have that kind of success if it’s some watered-down and regular science program. Think of ISP as CalTech; you wouldn’t ask them to double the speed.</p>
<p>Thank you, Sam, for your response. ISP seems to be a perfect fit for a pre-med student, yet a horrible fit for a computer science major, because CS requires 13 classes over and above the ISP requirements, about double many other majors.</p>
<p>My son does have a pile of math/science AP credits (5’s in Calculus BC, Statistics, Physics B, both Physics Cs and Chemistry) plus 9 hours of actual college chemistry credit, in case that’s worth more. Counting his current APs in progress (including AP bio), he could finish NU in 3 years outside of ISP. I’m not clear if he could bypass any of the ISP classes, however, or if it were even advisable, given the program’s cross-disciplinary focus.</p>
<p>I certainly like the idea of the program, but I wish there were two ISP branches, a math/physics/cs option vs. a bio/chem pre-med option, both with an initial core of classes. One of the appeals of NU over CalTech (where my son refused to apply) is the chance to explore its broad liberal arts program, yet that benefit is lost if one’s entire undergrad curriculum is already pre-defined.</p>
That’s because computer science is technically not a science in the sense that it’s not a study of laws of nature or how physical/natural matters work or function. So the problem is not ISP itself. The problem is computer science has significantly less overlapping with physical or natural sciences. In ISP, you are studying bio, physics, chemistry integrated with math all at once. It has to have that many courses to cover all of them, despite the fact that the curriculum has already been carefully integrated. Adding computer science is really not much different from adding, say, economics.</p>
<p>I respectfully disagree. CS required the same sort of structured logical thinking that draws students to math or physics. I’d say biology and then chemistry (at least organic) rely more heavily on memorization than on a deep knowledge of a consistent structure and rule-set. I don’t really see how 2 semesters of quantum mechanics will benefit a future doctor nor do I see how classes in molecular biology and neurobiology will benefit a math/physics major any more than if they were to use the same time to take humanities or social science classes.</p>
<p>An either/or choice would make more sense to me, with the option of taking the other classes as electives.</p>
<p>^Actually there are fields like biophysics/computational bio (in graduate schools) and there are many overlaps between physics and chemistry. ISP is for people who love natural sciences and want to explore all of them and the interrelationships between them. You mentioned the apparent disconnect among them and that’s exactly one of the main reasons why ISP was founded. Tradiational curriculum in just about any school have them taught separately and it’s difficult to see the connections. Yet at the grad school level, you have obscure fields like biophysics/computational biology…etc. ISP curriculum emphasize the relationships and how they all fit together; that’s why it’s “integrated”.</p>
<p>Also, in case you haven’t noticed, most of the classes in the program are for ISP students only. For example, physics may sound a lot like regular physics but they are not:
</p>
<p>ISP is not meant to benefit any particular group and it’s definitely not designed for premeds/future doctors. Biology and chemistry may seem more about memorization, especially in HS or AP. But I doubt that’s what you’d see in ISP classes. </p>
<p>I agree that math and computer science have more in common. I know very little about computer science but the logics/langugage behind seem to have close relationships with mathematics. Perhaps because the relationships are already evident and taught in classes, there’s really no need for another integrated program between math and computer. </p>
<p>I think the decision is more about what your S is really interested in. It looks like he has much stronger preference for physics than chemistry/biology so maybe ISP may not really suit him. On the other hand, I wonder if this is more because of how biology/chemistry taught in his prior classes (memorization). Looks like he has a tough decision to make.</p>
<p>I’m finding it interesting to read this thread. I’m thinking it isn’t always clear for an ISPer what route they will finally end up taking. Some of them drop out of ISP because they find an area they really want to concentrate in, while others stay the course with ISP and add the second major. </p>
<p>For example, my S, a freshman ISPer, says he’d only need to take three more classes betond ISP to secure a second major in mathematics. His conundrum is that he likes applied mathematics, so has been talking to faculty in McCormick Engineering, since that is where applied math is housed at NU. However, my H (math professor at USC, PhD fromt MIT) is currently advising our S that if he wanted to do applied math in graduate school, he’d be better served and get a better grounding in math by going for the math degree in Weinberg. The math dept chair at USC went that route (got both his BS and PhD from Brown.) It will be interesting to see how this turns out.</p>
<p>It is true that most classes in ISP are just for ISP students, so this makes the class sizes small. However, I was surprised this was NOT the case in chemistry. Also, there is the rare instance that a non-ISPer is recommended for entry into a class or two with ISP. My S said there was one of these students in the ISP physics class this year.</p>
<p>Well, my son is off at Brown University today, attending a STEM presentation that will give him a good overview of their math, science and engineering departments; they were nice enough to pay for his airline ticket. We’ll look at ISP again when he gets back and discuss the pros and cons of each opportunity.</p>
<p>Again, we really like the idea of ISP, but feel the “Mama NU knows best” handholding that allows little flexibility in class choices is a real drawback. Deep initial exposure to all of these fields is great, deep required exposure for 3 full years is excessive. Students smart enough for this program should also be treated as being smart enough to make wise class choices. </p>
<p>There are also many scientific areas that do not appear to be covered. Cultural archeology comes immediately to my mind because I’m currently reading Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel – how do scientists in such fields decide what data to analyze, how to they do it, what are the conclusions and where are the controversies? I’d trade off 4th and 5th and 6th classes in a given field to instead teach advanced statistical data-mining, which help scientists find deeper patterns in a large, diverse data-set.</p>
<p>When my S was given names of ISPers to speak with while he was a prospective applicant, there was one young woman who was an ISP and archeology double major. She frequently took the El to the museums in downtown Chicago to do some of her research. I’ve heard of ISP and engineering double majors, ISP and comp sci double majors.</p>
<p>I think it’d be too expensive to offer a wide array of ISP-level electives to just a small group of ISP majors and not knowing which class will be filled and what not. Remember ISP classes are unlike regular classes; they are more advanced and specificly designed for ISP majors and they are built upon each other (integrated). So you have to somwhow have large selection of these type of “integrated” classes. There’s probably not enough mass to justify it.</p>
<p>A few schools have ISP-like program that allow people to just pick minimum number of courses in multiple science departments. Students just choose whatever <em>regular</em> classes they like and at the end, you got a few in bio, a few in chem, a few in physics…etc but that’s not really “integration” and the classes are not anything special. In that case, it’s really more like an ad hoc major which NU does allows.</p>
<p>My son considered the ISP and pre-med at NU and was told outright that he could not do all pre-med requirements along with all of the physical science requirements in ISP in 4 years. If anyone is in ISP, pre-med and is on track to graduate in 4 years, I would be interested in knowing how you are doing it (5 or 6 classes per term?).</p>
<p>I was ISP/premed my freshman year (dropped it because it really wasnt for me, I didnt even go to med school Im at Hopkins now studying public health). anyway, i dont know what you mean that you cant do both, the ISP curriculum includes all premed classes- I placed out of gen chem, took orgo my freshman year, physics my freshman year, and biology my sophomore year…Im pretty sure thats all you need to apply to med school- although I will say from what I understand most ISP-ers are interested in going onto grad school and not med school so the dynamic of the program is more hard science focused than medical/biological. Still possible, and from what I know ISPers do very very well in terms of med school admissions but that might just be a bias because the overall work ethic and intelligence of ISP is well above that of the typical NU student.</p>
<p>Well, in this case Brown’s open curriculum wins. My son figured out that at Brown he could get a bachelor of science in math and computer science plus a bachelor of arts in physics plus have a minimum of 7 classes of free electives at Brown. At NU, ISP plus CS would lock him into a rigid sequence for 4 full years with almost no elective options. It was not a tough choice for him at all.</p>
<p>Hi Sam Lee, Does it mean anybody in ISP have to go to grad school? For instance, in order to pursue careers as scientific researchers they’ll have to further learn something more specific in depth? Does it mean ISP students are doing some “too broad” subjects?</p>
<p>Does anyone know if the information sessions that the ISP program will be holding in April are helpful? I assume that they are, but what kind of an overview do they give? Will they be receptive to questions about the impact on the ability to gain a secnd major and/or take electives? NU students take 12 classes per year, so I assume that there will be room enough for a good selction of of electives</p>