<p>I want to major in neuroscience. </p>
<p>Should I pursue a major in neuroscience at a liberal arts college or a university? Which is the better choice?</p>
<p>I know that Dartmouth College and Amherst College have good neuroscience programs (LAC)
and UPenn, Stanford and Brown University have good neuroscience programs (University)</p>
<p>Neuroscience is a diverse field of biology that has come to include many different academic fields of inquiry. Neuroscience is an interesting major because of the diversity of ways that colleges offer it. My D is applying to colleges this year and saying that she’ll major in neuro, so I’ve had some experience helping her find schools that fit. Maybe at one end there is Ohio State or UMaryland, the latter of which offers a neurophysiology “specialization” within the Dept of Biology curriculum. Here you take all the courses a Biology student of any stripe takes at a large research university (pretty standard rigorous “pre-med” fare), plus some cell biology/chemistry courses, an intro to neurosci course, and a group of courses from which you may select some upper-division credits pertaining to animal and human anatomy, physiology, and neuroscience. But it is a fundamentally natural science-oriented specialization that does not traffic in the social sciences, fine arts, or humanities. See here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://chembio.umd.edu/sites/default/csbsci/PHNB_GenEd_cs.pdf”>http://chembio.umd.edu/sites/default/csbsci/PHNB_GenEd_cs.pdf</a></p>
<p>At the other end of the spectrum are the neurosci programs that try to mount a curriculum that includes a little bit of most things under the Sun of Neuroscience: biology, yes, but also linguistics, AI, philosophy of mind, cognition, audiology, evolutionary biology, psychology, aesthetics. Neuroscience even has things to tell us about my field, the study of literature, so some schools try to address that in their offerings. Each of these alternative programs limits what the neuroscience curriculum by what its faculty can support. So if they don’t have a linguist who does neurosci-based research, they don’t offer neurolinguistics. You see? And so forth. So here you’re really picking among colleges with programs that offer one or two researchers and often one or two courses in neuro-AI or neurophilosophy and so forth. So breadth rather than necessarily depth in these programs. Larger schools can do more breadth and depth but a small school will have its limits. Perhaps Bard’s Mind-Brain-Behavior program is one of these: </p>
<p><a href=“http://mbb.bard.edu/require/”>http://mbb.bard.edu/require/</a></p>
<p>In between are some programs that are more like Bard’s than UMD’s or OSU’s but that offer more breadth and/or more depth of sub-specialty. Or that have acquired prominence in, say, neurosci and reading or speech, such as Tufts. WashU’s Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology program is one of these with which I am familiar. Obviously, the name of the program tells you something about its focus, but schools as large and as wealthy as WashU are able to offer depth and breadth that extend beyond the program’s title, something smaller and less well-endowed schools like Bard, whatever the program’s and college’s merits, cannot. There’s just not enough student demand for breadth and depth at Bard the way there is at WashU.</p>
<p>Why that is has to do not only with wealth and size but also with resources: WashU has a medical school, as do other excellent neuroscience programs like Tulane and Vandy (and also UMD and OSU), which enables the Neuroscience program to offer u/g and grad courses taught by medical faculty from the hospital. So in general they just have more resources available to the u/g student, including research opportunities, internships, etc.</p>
<p>My representation of the study of neuroscience is flawed in many ways, but I’ve tried to give it a structure that you can get your head around and use to frame your research into the field.</p>
<p>And this is all without mentioning a field of study and curricula called cognitive science. Neuroscience is a very new field in some respects, and a very old one, and so it’s hard to pin down exactly what it is. Nonetheless, the faculty of various kinds of schools have tried to form majors, minors, programs, and specializations in neuroscience that make use of the resources that their institution has at hand and/or wants to invest in. For some neuroscience is first a science and little more. For others it is a way of understanding the human condition that transcends the natural sciences and then some. Lots of opportunities for you to explore.</p>
<p>I will probably look back at this in an hour and want to change something. In a month I will wish I hadn’t written it, probably. It’s hard to understand what you’ve left out or said poorly when you’re looking at six or eight lines at a time. Anyway, ask questions if you have them.</p>
<p>To answer your questions, you want to pursue neuroscience at a program that has strengths in what you’re interested in in neuroscience. Having said that, if you were going into neuroscience without knowing much about it you could do a lot worse than attending one of the colleges you name.</p>
<p>Look into Pomona- we have a really well developed neuroscience program (in fact, it has been used to model a liberal arts neuroscience education at places like Harvard), and really top notch facilities for it that are graduate level. We have a good selection of courses for a liberal arts school in the neurosciences, and it’s our 5th most popular major. It’s a very well designed major- very flexible and large in its scope (<a href=“http://catalog.pomona.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=11&poid=1800”>Program: Neuroscience Major - Pomona College - Acalog ACMS™) Our graduates have done very well in terms of being admitted into the top neuroscience schools and we have one of the largest summer research programs of any school in the country- larger than virtually any offered by any other liberal arts college.</p>
<p>The major actually seems very similar to that of Amherst- a basic science education, a core neuro class, elective neuro classes, and psych and biology integration, with a specific neuroscience study abroad option at the University College of London. It however seems that Pomona offers more classes each semester, whereas only one or two are offered at Amherst that are specific for neuroscience. This is likely due to demand of neuroscience relative to both schools.</p>
<p>Having an interest in doing neuroscience prior to applying for college, and visiting both Amherst and Pomona, Pomona’s facilities, especially in science, are better. However, Amherst is proposing a beautiful science building, though it will take time to build. </p>
<p>Also- Dartmouth is not a LAC. </p>
<p>Pomona is one of the schools to which my D applied, and nostalgic wisdom is correct in saying that one of the advantages of Pomona is that it’s part of a very good consortium, the Claremont Colleges, and they together are very strong in neuroscience. I’ve had some contact with the director of the neuro program at Keck, the shared science center thru which Claremont students learn their neuro and with another professor at Scripps, and I’ve been assured of the quality and quantity of neuro specific equipment that Keck makes available to neuro majors. It is outstanding, maybe the best u/g lab resources among LACs (it would be hard to tell without asking each LAC, but it is impressive and unlike any other LAC we visited). Still, for this student and others interested in neuro, the college s/he chooses should have some relationship with how s/he thinks about neuro, whether his or her interests in neuro lie in philosophy, psychology, animal behavior, cognition, anthropology, etc. Again, one of the advantages of Pomona (and the other Claremont schools) is that there are a lot of neuro professors addressing the subject in many ways. The question to ask is are any of them addressing it in the ways the OP is interested in addressing it. We’ve looked at other neuro programs such as the one at Amherst and we’ve visited the one at Bard, and we did not find the breadth and depth of neuro research we wanted at any LAC except Pomona and the Claremonts. That’s not to say it isn’t out there, but if you want another small college neuro with broad and deep resources you might have to look at an Ivy like Princeton or Harvard (or not exactly small Cornell). You might try the Amherst consortium, but Amherst itself did not impress with its breadth and depth. And don’t forget that Brain Awareness Week is just around the corner, March 10-16!</p>
<p>We also found excellent equipment and resources and impressive faculty at URichmond, surprisingly, but we didn’t find what we were looking for in breadth and depth of faculty. But if you know you want a largely natural sciences approach to neuro, a small LAC like Richmond or Amherst, or a larger one like UMD or any number of state flagships, might be the way to go.</p>
<p>KENYON</p>
<p>jkeil911- thank you for your very long and detailed answer. I hope your daughter gets accepted to the college she wants to go 
nostalgic wisdom- I didn’t know Pomona had such a great program thanx for the info!</p>
<p>Another school to consider is U Rochester. My guy considered many of the schools listed here, but ended up liking U Rochester the best. At many schools, they have a specific focus (as previously mentioned) - either neuro or cognitive, etc. U Roc offers both. Since he wasn’t totally sure which he liked, and wanted undergrad research options, he preferred a school offering many options. He hasn’t been disappointed at all (is a current sophomore, and decided on cognitive).</p>
<p>I can second URoc as a good neuro program, as well as UPitt, Ohio State, UMaryland, Brandeis, Duke, Georgetown, UMich, Northwestern, Syracuse, Wake Forest, UCSD, UCB, UCSB, UCLA, Emory, and USC. One of the most important considerations for the u/g neuro student is availability of research opps on and off campus, another reason it helps to have a hospital and graduate program nearby. Often however you can do your research during the summers hundreds of miles from campus. It all depends on how much experience you want to get. I’d prefer D had a few hours a week every semester and then something during the summer full time, but that’s just the way I think about getting research experience. The sooner you develop skills the sooner you can turn those skills into paid summer or sometimes semester labor. If you want a list of good LACs in neuro outside the Ivies, let me know.</p>
<p>Yes please! Can you tell me a list of good LACs in neuro??</p>
<p>Far from complete, but a start:</p>
<p>Amherst
Bard
Bates
Boston College
Bowdoin
Bucknell
Carleton
ClaremontMcKenna
Colby
Colgate
Connecticut C
Grinnell
Hamilton
Hampshire
Kenyon C
Lafayette
Macalester
Oberlin
Pitzer 38/62
Pomona
Rhodes
Richmond
Scripps
Skidmore
Smith
St. Olafs
Vassar
Washington & Lee
Wellesley
Williams</p>
<p>Wesleyan needs to be added</p>
<p>wow! it definitely is a start! Thank you!!</p>
<p>de nada, OP. Do check out the differences between major, minor, concentration, and program. Very few LACs will have major because of the resources that entails. Study each school closely for the resources it dedicates to neurosci; examine number of faculty, number of affiliated faculty from other departments, number of courses offered, number offered each semester, how often the upper division courses are offered (some will be once every three years–that may not do you any good), how many major/minors, where students interned in the summer, how many went on to a phd, etc.</p>
<p>The other thing you can do, which I didn’t do, is to look at cognitive science programs. These have in the past tended toward the psychology end of brain studies (as opposed to the bio) end, but it’s another field you can consider. So many choices, OP.</p>
<p>You can return the favor if you learn of any LACs that strike your interest, particularly any offering majors.</p>
<p>wow, jkeil911, I deeply appreciate every detailed information and advice from you. Thank you so much. I will definitely do that and will return the favor if I do learn of any LACs like that :)</p>
<p>Lawrence has added a neuroscience major (not my D’s area of interest but I saw a new release the other day)
<a href=“Faculty Approves Curriculum Changes for Neuroscience, Innovation and Entrepreneurship – Lawrence University News”>http://blogs.lawrence.edu/news/2014/02/faculty-approves-curriculum-changes-for-neuroscience-innovation-and-entrepreneurship.html</a></p>
<p>Isn’t that interesting! Thanks, Emmasmum.</p>
<p>I’m so glad I found this thread. My D is interested in Neuro as well and we have the same question regarding whether a LAC or a larger school would be better for this major. </p>
<p>@jkeil911 - I’m impressed by the research you have done! I have a question regarding Keck and the 5Cs. I can see that Pomona has many classes offered in Neuro (but is a super-reach for most students) and I’m not sure if kids from Scripps & Pitzer can take those classes. They seem to have fewer courses than Pomona. In your study, did you find that all 5 C kids had access to all the Neuro classes equally, or do they have to take the ones offered by their school?</p>
<p>I cannot say anything definitively about that because Pomona was the target for D. But I think the answer is yes. I do know that D could take some courses, maybe even double major, in Italian at Scripps. We checked into that. Apparently, students at each college take advantage of the courses available at all the colleges, but whether there’s an expectation that you take certain courses in your major at your college, I don’t know for sure. I do know that entrance to Scripps and Pitzer is slightly easier than the other three, and that’s worth looking into. It should be easy enough to find an answer to your question, MamaBear, and if you find out I’d be happy to know exactly what it says.</p>
<p>Mamabear, looking at the course enrollments, only 2 neuro classes at Pomona this semester and 1 in the fall had students from the other colleges. Of those that did, only 1 or 2 were non-Pomona students.</p>
<p>In general, Pomona courses, especially science ones, are notoriously difficult to cross-enroll in due to a high demand at Pomona. However, those numbers may simply mean that there isn’t a demand from the other colleges to take neuroscience courses at Pomona.</p>