<p>There is a chance that the physics department at many schools may be indeed more friendly than the departments like bio or chem.</p>
<p>At one time, my child was toying with the idea of being a physics major. I would guess that the friendliness of the professors/students there has something to do with this (and one of his close friends is a physics major.) I remember that he once mentioned that he actually likes his physics professor, and had never missed any physics class. He has never mentioned anything about any of his bio professors…And ironically, he is a bio major now. (And he hates intro bio in freshman year.)</p>
<p>The bio department needs to deal with an army of bio majors. The chem department is even worse: It has to teach so many students each year but in the end, there are relatively few students who major in it. But I heard that if you really become a chemistry (or physics) major, they treat you very nice. Well…I exaggerate it a little bit, as there are always some nice professors in every department. But I think the number of majors in each department may influence your “experience.”</p>
<p>I learned that, in recent years, unlike the bio or biochemistry or chemistry department, the number of physics majors at his school has actually been increased, after some coordinated efforts from the physics department to attract more majors to their department. I also think that the population of non-science major premeds have been slowly increased in recent years.</p>