<p>I’ll just point out that big does not necessarily mean bad, at least when it comes to lecture. I’ve been watching chemistry lectures [online] from a 500-person class at Berkeley for the past few weeks, and they are GREAT. That class actually has more interaction during lecture than my AP Bio class (~25 students). These lectures have taught me more than a year of high school chem and I don’t have communication or interaction of any kind with the professor (after all, I’m not a Berkeley student :P)</p>
<p>Honestly, where I live, I’d fit right into Terre Haute… (Sorry, that was to someone on the first page)</p>
<p>Anyway, thank you all for the responses too. If this has any effect on your comments, I hope to go to UIUC for graduate work. That’s not saying I would want to start out there also, because my sister (who is a grad student at UIUC) said that the general consensus among grad students is that it is better to have gone to a different school for undergrad. I guess it has to do with exposure to different environments. I am in no way wanting to say that big schools are “bad”. I just personally prefer a smaller school. I am going to visit RHIT this weekend and even though I have been to UIUC plenty of times I will be visiting there the following weekend.</p>
<p>Thanks for any more responses! Your input is great and very helpful!</p>
<p>I went to an undergraduate only college (Harvey Mudd) for undergrad, and am now at a very respected program in my research field for my PhD (about four professors in my area are in the National Academy of Sciences, several of them have won top prizes by the American Physical Society for their work, etc…).</p>
<p>The lifestyle of a research professor is simply very different from that of a teaching professor. You travel a lot more, have to write more grants, and are more pressured to publish. Some people simply might find it very stressful and not want to have that kind of life. Having experienced both environments, I can say with complete confidence that indeed professors at undergraduate only colleges (including Rose Hulman) are overall much better teachers and care a lot more. Research professors care about research, first and foremost. Neither type of professor is better than the other, they just have different priorities in life. </p>
<p>So I would advise anyone reading this to please not listen to G.P. Burdell’s insufferable elitism and condescending arrogance. Sadly, a lot of research professors do share this kind of attitude, which I might add would be a very strong deterrent for why several strong candidates escape R1 academia to go to a more humble and less pretentious crowd. Any potential students should try to meet both types of professors at both types of schools and come to their own conclusion.</p>
<p>I have visited Rose-Hulman (just yesterday actually) and find it to be a perfect fit for me (and I do mean perfect).<br>
I would personally prefer the teaching professors to the research professors because the point to paying however much money is in the end to learn as much as you can for the future. So I wouldn’t exactly want a research professor who doesn’t put as much emphasis on teaching as he or she does on research.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the responses.</p>
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<p>It’s not arrogance - it’s the truth that you have yet to refute. Why not try logic rather than ad hominem attacks?</p>
<p>The only actual point I saw is this:</p>
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<p>I agree with that point, however the counterpoint is that if a person is adverse to stress, and knows that he wants to pursue a teaching position (which is much less in demand), why would he attend MIT? Clearly he wouldn’t. Instead, he’d attend a 2nd tier school where the PhD program is less stressful, easier for admission and graduation, the teaching requirements were less lax (allowing him to potentially teach), and the research demands were less (allowing for faster graduation). So, that person would have a lower quality of education than an MIT student, no?</p>
<p>And what about the MIT graduates that go to teaching schools? The fact that they self-selected into a top research program with no opportunity to teach shows that they have interest in research and not in teaching. So which MIT grads go to teaching schools? Those that can’t get positions at research schools. Of course there could be the odd student that has his heart set on research then changes his mind in the 4th year, but that is an outlier and rare. It’s like looking at the number of Harvard graduates that become elementary school teachers - it happens but it’s extremely rare.</p>
<p>Just for the hell of it, I looked at RHIT’s ME department to see where their profs got their Ph.D.'s. In retrospect, I should have looked at Chem E because of the OP’s interest, but I am not going to go back and redo it now, haha. Either way, it seems like there is a good mix of “top tier” schools and middle of the road schools. There are several Stanford’s and an MIT woman there. I am actually somewhat surprised. Anyway, its seems like their msot of their faculty comes from at least middle of the road research schools, if not top flight ones.</p>
<p>Ga Tech (2)
Michigan
Northwestern
Oregon State
Tennessee
Princeton
Purdue (2)
Colorado School of Mines
Texas
Stanford (2)
New Mexico
Notre Dame
Washington
UC Davis
UIUC
Cornell
MIT
New Hampshire
Ohio State (2)
Southern Methodist
Texas A&M
Maryland
Iowa State</p>
<p>Salve!</p>
<p>I assume you have now trimmed down your college list to 2 schools, UIUC and RHIT.</p>
<p>You wouldn’t go wrong with either of them academics wise. So choose one where you think you will be happiest studying for 4 years. There are certainly trade offs. At UIUC, there are of course many established research opportunities due to its size, but it also means there are more people “fighting” for them. For instance, at UIUC, there are literally hundreds of CS undergrads in addition to hundreds of CS grad students. I seriously doubt you can just peek into a faculty’s office and discuss for say an hour on something you just don’t grasp. While at Rose, all the faculties dedicate themselves to teaching, so spending time helping out students is their primary goal and purpose. Opportunities wise, if you just ask, professors are always willing to hook you up with research on campus over the summer, let alone internships in the industry. Possible options are of course less at Rose than at a big research school like UIUC. </p>
<p>As for grad school, you can certainly get into decent ones provided that you do well at Rose or UIUC. Rose-Hulman has its reputation among engineering grad school deans. As a matter of fact, even UIUC’s faculties have good opinions about Rose.</p>
<p>Bottom line: whether a teaching school or research school, it all comes down to the atmosphere you desire and inevitably, cost.</p>
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<p>They may indeed demand a state of the art education…and not get it, not even at a top school.</p>
<p>Since you used separations as an example, let’s talk about that. I know many chemical engineers who took the separations course at a top-ranked school that shall remain unnamed (but is easily within the top 5), for which the course was taught by a prof whose research, frankly, has nothing to do with separations. His research has to do with molecular spectroscopy, and he publishes in such journals as the J. of Magnetic Resonance and the J. of Solid State Chemistry. Surely he was brilliant in those particular endeavors, but that has nothing to do with separations. Yet the fact remains that he was the only guy teaching the course, and the course was offered only once a year. The students could have demanded an expert in separations all they wanted and it would have come to naught, for the department decided that he was the man to teach that course, end of story. </p>
<p>The problem is that at many research universities, even (or perhaps especially) at the top-ranked ones, many profs end up teaching courses that have little if anything to do with their research. Hence, they know little more than their students do about that particular topic. Heck, it wouldn’t even help much if they could teach what they research. Let’s face it - very few engineering undergrads really need to take a course on spectroscopy. The academic research has vastly outpaced the needs of most engineering undergraduates, even the seniors. Heck, even the vast majority of engineering grad students do not need take a course on spectroscopy.</p>
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<p>…or not. You said it yourself - it’s practically impossible to be fired once you’re tenured. If a prof chooses not to keep up with the latest research after being tenured, there is no way to force him. And the fact is, many tenured profs, even at top schools, frankly, do not keep up with the latest research. Granted, they’re doing other things, such as administrative duties or writing textbooks, but that does not mean that they’re keeping up with the cutting edge of research in their field. </p>
<p>While some schools may indeed require that tenured profs attend conferences/seminars or serve on PhD committees, it is not required - nor is it even feasible for it to be required - that those professors diligently execute those requirements. Again, if a tenured prof decides to attend a conference/seminar and just spend all his time playing with his Iphone, nothing can stop him. Heck, I know some tenured profs who are notorious for perennially sleeping and snoring during seminars. Similarly, if a tenured prof decides to be nothing more than a rubber stamp while serving on a PhD committee, nothing can stop him. {Indeed, I suspect that many PhD students would purposefully seek out such a committee member.}</p>
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<p>Well, I would actually argue that many (probably most) MIT PhD students choose the school because they don’t really know what they want to do and they therefore want to keep all options open. Coming out of an MIT PhD program, you can take a research academic position, a teaching academic position, a nice job in industry in your field, or a nice industry job that’s not in your field (i.e. consulting or banking). </p>
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<p>I think you place far too much determinism in people’s ex-ante choices. I think it’s fair to say that MIT PhD students had interest in research, but that’s not to say that they still do years later. MIT is aptly described as a firehose, where the emphasis on research may be too much for many people, including those who thought they would enjoy it. I know many former and current MIT PhD students who used to enjoy research but who are now, frankly, tired of it and want to pursue other interests. </p>
<p>Nor do I think MIT to be an exception. I think most PhD programs, even the top ones, are replete with students who are disenchanted with research and are just looking to graduate so they can move on with their lives. There’s a reason why PhD Comics has struck such a nerve within the student community - a veritable Dilbert within the world of academia. Heck, many PhD students don’t even bother to graduate before pursuing other endeavors: Yahoo was famously founded by 2 Stanford EE PhD students who were dreadfully bored with their VLSI research and spent all their time ‘irresponsibly’ browsing and cataloging the nascent WWW instead of doing their research. Now they’re multibillionaires. </p>
<p>I can therefore see a pure teaching position as being a major plus for many MIT PhD students who are now exhausted from and downright allergic to research and want to remain affiliated with academia but without having to undergo much more research.</p>
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<p>Ha! This sounds similar to the neoclassical arguments regarding perfect market equilibra that always conveniently ignore the fact that real-world markets are almost never in equilibria. This is particularly true in social phenomena which can exhibit social inefficiencies for a very long time, sometimes centuries. </p>
<p>To wit, the major advantage that the top research universities seem to provide is probably not the actual research performed, in spite of whatever the universities may claim, but rather its role as a social network connector, particularly among students and employers (and also among students to each other). Students prefer MIT because that is where the top recruiters are, and similarly top recruiters prefer MIT because that is where the top students are. MIT therefore serves as a focal point upon which network effects can make themselves felt. Maybe a more efficient outcome would be realized if both parties were to choose a different focal point. But the fact is, nobody (yet) dares to try, and the parties cannot coordinate amongst themselves. Hence, even if a potential MIT student chooses to go elsewhere, the fact is, the recruiters are not going to follow. Hence, if you want to have the chance of working for Facebook or for a venture capital firm, you have to go to where those places recruit, whether you like it or not. </p>
<p>It’s like I’ve always said regarding finding girlfriends: you have to go to the places where girls tend to congregate, and if that means taking dancing classes, yoga classes, cooking classes, then so be it, even if you don’t particularly enjoy those activities. Maybe society would be more efficient if people could meet in settings that were more interesting to both parties. {For example, I’ve found that one of the most effective ways to meet boatloads of women is to take a ballet class, but of course most
guys do not want to learn ballet.} But the fact is, the girls are not going to stop taking those classes, and if you want the chance to meet them, you have to go to where they are.</p>
<p>sakky, you know that posting 4 consecutive walls of text makes all of us less likely to read them, right?</p>
<p>I think it’s better than posting one ginormous post. I’m quite sure nobody would read that.</p>
<p>Read only the ones you want (quickly skim through them to find out which ones).</p>
<p>Or not. Hey, if you don’t want to read them, fine, don’t read them.</p>
<p>1) Kudos for the use of “ginormous.”</p>
<p>2) The only advantage is with 4 giant posts, people might read the first one until they see the next 3 are also from you and are huge, and then they give up. With one extremely gargantuan post, people probably just wouldn’t bother in the first place, so I guess you might be at least somewhat onto something there.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I read all four posts sakky. Good work. And hey, I did not know you had such keen insight into how to get a girlfriend ;)</p>
<p>Sakky’s response to G.P. Burdell covers most of what I had in mind. I have a few more things I’d like to say but I’m a little tired right now. But I will try to get to responding soon enough.</p>
<p>haha, I guess that between writing this research proposal and just not caring about how this topic has progressed anymore, I have just stopped reading the walls of text.</p>
<p>I agree that you should put Purdue on your list.</p>
<p>Sakky, kudos to you. I did read all 4 of your posts and was truly impressed by the information and such. I also publicly take back anything I might have said about you before because it just doesn’t fit (especially after your girlfriend insight, I found that to be ingenious and pretty obvious if you really think about it, yet most don’t). So thank you sakky.</p>
<p>ELY, I don’t see a reason to go to Purdue when I have a school like UIUC at my doorstep. I am very set on Rose at the moment because mostly everything I know about it is exactly what I want.</p>
<p>Oh, and sakky, if you don’t mind, what is your opinion on the three schools I listed (since that was after all the whole question to this thread)? People have begun to get off on a tangent as to research vs. teaching schools. A tangent that probably should be discussed when talking about these schools, but can go on forever.</p>
<p>Also, to go off of what sakky said about professors just getting bored with research. My brother has a professor that went to MIT. We asked one time what he thought about his position and what he was doing and he responded “I never thought it was going to be like this.” What he meant was that he didn’t think it would involve so much research and he did not care for this aspect. You can tell he wished to put more emphasis on teaching, because after all that is what he became a prof for. He didn’t realize that research would engulf his life. Therefore, this definitely offers some more evidence to back up sakky’s statement about MIT students and research.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone for your posts.</p>
<p>I would choose UIUC, since it has one of the top engineering programs in the nation,
and it’s cheaper than the others, since you live in state.</p>
<p>But then again, it’s ultimately your decision, and you go with what you feel is best.</p>