<p>Hello guys,</p>
<p>I intend to study Physics in Colgate as an undergrad, but is the system a liberal arts one (where you study broad topics) or a normal one (where the focus is highly on physics), can you help me?</p>
<p>Mamin1375,</p>
<p>Colgate is primarily a liberal arts college (LAC) and it also offers MA and MAT degrees. That explains the “university” moniker. And as a LAC with many distinct characteristics one can major and minor in Physics. Please see the website and its links, as follows:</p>
<p>[Academic</a> Majors and Minors - Courses of Study - Concentrations](<a href=“http://colgate.edu/academics/majors-and-minors]Academic”>Majors & Minors | Colgate University)</p>
<p>Colgate has a storied and most worthwhile Core Curriculum drawing on resources from its Divisions and a Freshman Seminar. So you can indeed study Physics as a major but you will certainly not be narrowly educated- hence the emphasis of “liberal arts” with a superb scholars teaching in a 9:1 student to faculty ratio in one of the most beautiful settings in the country.</p>
<p>I hope that clarifies what Colgate (and many other American LACs) offer in terms of context and your particular question.</p>
<p>Good luck with your college search!</p>
<p>Thank you very much. So is it the same with Vanderbilt, Brown, etc. ? Is a physics degree in a famous liberal arts college genuine enough to qualify you for graduate degree in an ivy or not?</p>
<p>Broadly and generally speaking, the objective of an education at a top LAC is to develop your intellectual skills in a manner that is unique to you and the institution you attend. Read each school’s mission statement and within each school what is explained about the degree requirement of each major or concentration and you will get some of the insights you seek. So there is nothing “same” about that journey.</p>
<p>That said, I think it’s also easy to generalize that LACs retain a unique niche in the US higher education system with the rich quality of the education they offer in terms of focus- virtually exclusively on the undergraduate education mission- while affording access to their faculty, facilities and programs. You would earn your qualifications and recommendations for graduate programs elsewhere. LACs’ websites should make these assertions clearer for you; the colgate.edu site is quite clear about its ambitions for its undergraduates</p>
<p>So at a top LAC you don’t “study” physics or French literature or renaissance art or mathrmatics or anthropology of the sub-Sahara or any one discipline. You would take a full and broad (a word you used) selection of courses of interest to you alongside your major course of study. For example, would could major in physics with the department’s requirement for certain courses and projects, possibly 8-14 courses as prescribed, AND also take the remainder of your total course requirement totaling 32 total courses including the Freshman seminar and CORE requirements. Some students double major too.</p>
<p>Yes, many high school students choose LACs for these formative years wherein they distinguish themselves with scholarship and also enjoy amazing extracurricular activities. Some would say that for those who progress to graduate schools- major research or Ivy or something else- one’s graduate years come soon enough. There is no subsitute, in my opinion, for those 4 years at a top LAC.</p>
<p>Thank you very much 
great information</p>
<p>Here are a couple of additional thoughts on what makes Colgate especially interesting to applicants of top LACs and prestigious large universities.</p>
<p>I have often heard Colgate representatives say that Colgate strives to be the “best liberal arts university” in the US. I believe they mean to emphasize that the quality and depth of Colgate’s faculty, facilities and programs- within the liberal arts context- are rather special and unique.</p>
<p>Colgate is larger at just over 2900 students, and in some cases several hundred students, than many other top LACs. And with an impressive 9:1 student faculty ratio, Colgate students have access to a larger number of faculty and their course offerings. For example, and this is an area that is not of personal expertise, Colgate’s computer science department has been an independent unit and discipline for decades and has twice the number of faculty of many peer LACs.</p>
<p>Also, Colgate has the “feel” of a university rather than an LAC. The depth and breadth of programs that it can afford to offer as a consequence of its size and scope are described on the colgate.edu website, and in particular the section “Distinctly Colgate”. You already know that Colgate’s mission is undergraduate education such that there is unity of purpose administratively for the benefit of all of its students- as compared with larger universities with various and competing constituents. </p>
<p>I would be remiss if I did not mention the very engaged alumni body who support all aspects of Colgate’s student endeavors and campus development. Today we are quite pleased with our win over No. 1 Minnesota in Div 1 men’s ice hockey, just as we were all quite chuffed and indeed proud of the $5.1 million fundraising achieved on our “Colgate Day”, 13 Dec., 2013 which reportedly is the largest result for any US university on a single day.</p>
<p>Best of luck with your college search!</p>
<p>In answer to your question,
Is a physics degree in a famous liberal arts college genuine enough to qualify you for graduate degree in an ivy or not?
I can say that my older D majored in physics at Smith, and is now pursuing graduate studies in EE (in a more physics-y program than engineering: applied physics, that is, not theoretical), not at an ivy but at a well-regarded school. She finds that she is more prepared, so far, than her classmates who majored in engineering.</p>
<p>First, just to clarify, Vanderbilt is not an Ivy although it is a highly selective university. Other elite non-Ivy universities include Stanford, MIT, CalTech, The University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins and Duke. Secondly, the primary differences between a liberal arts college (LAC) and a university are (1) size – universities usually, but not always, have more undergraduates than LAC’s and (2) graduate degrees conferred – LAC’s usually do not offer much in the way of master’s degrees and PhD’s and do not normally have law schools, medical schools and the like. Thirdly, you don’t go to a liberal arts college to study the liberal arts in the sense that you mean, and the physics degree is no less “genuine.” If you applied to a university to study physics for a bachelor’s degree, you would most likely be enrolling in that university’s “College of Arts and Sciences.” Think of an LAC as a stand-alone college of arts and sciences. Both universities and LACs generally require you to take some combination of liberal arts courses, in addition to the 15 or so classes in your chosen major, to graduate. For example, Cornell, a large Ivy League university, requires no less than 5 courses in humanities and the social sciences as well as a writing seminar and demonstrated proficiency in a foreign language. You would have to look to the technical universities such as MIT, Carnegie Mellon or Caltech if you wanted to avoid the liberal arts, but I think even MIT requires a couple of humanities courses. Finally, if your goal is to do graduate study in physics at an Ivy or otherwise elite university, your chances will not be affected so much by your choice of LAC vs. university for your undergraduate studies as by the academic rigor of your selected institution and how well you do once admitted. You should have demonstrated your ability to do original research, have super scores on the GRE, and have first-rate recommendations from your faculty mentors. A match between your particular interest in the field of physics and research being conducted at the university where you want to pursue your PhD would also be a good idea. Those of us who have chosen to attend an LAC feel that at large universities undergraduates are at a disadvantage because they are often taught by teaching assistants who are PhD students and who therefore do not have much to offer when it comes to mentoring and providing recommendations for graduate school. Undergraduates don’t have access to the Nobel laureates and other marquee names at universities when it comes to choosing an advisor or finding a sponsor for their research. At LACs, undergraduates are taught and advised by PhD’s, and because there aren’t any graduate students, they don’t have to be taught by them or compete with them for research positions or for recommendations and advice.</p>
<p>Markham, would you kindly elaborate on your statement, “You would earn your qualifications and recommendations for graduate programs elsewhere.”<br>
Are you saying that placement in a top grad school for a science degree will mostly depend on the quality of summer research internships the student lands, and letters of rec from that source? And that the reputation of the undergraduate LAC bears little impact (presuming equal GPA at either)?
Thanks very much for your postings.</p>
<p>PilotDeep,</p>
<p>You know, when I typed this sentence and ended it with “elsewhere” I knew that there was a risk of ambiguity. What my structure was mean to support was only the notion that the graduate degrees are taken elsewhere.</p>
<p>Further, what I meant to explain was the Colgate degree programs in coordination with professors’ recommendations, career advising office assistance is the usual route to graduate programs and also for employment. One’s GPA, Colgate’s reputation (and graduate schools’ experience with Colgate graduates) and standardized test scores (as appropriate) are generally determinative. Of course, evidence of further achievement and distinction earned off campus during one’s 4 years is useful too for these purposes.</p>
<p>Now for further elaboration I recommend you review the colgate.edu website and then the “Distinctly Colgate” section for information how students employ the resources at their disposal. “Success after Colgate” and “Professional Networks” will give add some perspective. For particular answers relating possibly to one’s intended major it’s best to contact individual departments’ professors too. Contact names and details are supplied on the website.</p>
<p>I hope this sets things in motion for you!</p>
<p>Best of luck with your search!</p>
<p>Yes, quite. Thanks for the pointers too.
Your informative posts represent Colgate alumni quite favorably, nice job! :-)</p>