Any comments from students/alumni on these programs at Wes?
Son was accepted and we will be heading out there for a visit in April. Any tips on things to check out in these areas while there?
He plans on eventual graduate school in theoretical physics and would like small ug school with solid liberal arts foundation.
Out of those three departments, physics is likely the strongest. So strong, in fact, that Wesleyan has done extremely well recently with regards to the Apker Award - the highest, most prestigious prize for an undergraduate physics thesis in the country. Only two students are chosen nationally per year - one from a large school and one from a small/non-PhD granting school. A Wesleyan student was a small school finalist in 2008, a Wes student won the small school award in 2011, yet another won in 2014, and now another Wes student is a finalist.
Wesleyan science benefits from having a unique hybrid program - because there is a small PhD program within the liberal arts college, the professors have year-round, high-level research labs going, but because the program is so small, undergrads play vital roles in the labs, and this leads to things like the Apker Award for the undergrad students.
http://newsletter.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2014/09/09/hanakatafinalist/
http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/awards/apker.cfm
Touching base with the students and/or faculty in the physics department wouldn’t be a bad idea while on campus, same with the other departments. Congrats to your son on the acceptance to Wes!
@smartalic34 , it gets even better: Wesleyan competes in the “large” school category for the prize because the organizers consider Wesleyan a doctoral granting institution (which technically, it is.)
http://newsletter.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2014/09/09/hanakatafinalist/
Thank you for the links. We enjoyed reading several blog entries tagged physics.
Hopefully son will have time to read up on various professors before we go.
Any comments for math and CS? I am planning to double-major on both.
Suggest checking the status of Wesleyan’s plans to construct a new science building.
Also look into their 5th year master’s degree. It was a very nice benefit for those eligible.
The current capital campaign is devoted almost entirely to augmenting Wesleyan’s financial aid war chest and all major construction has been shelved until its conclusion. Co-founder and ex-CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals (and Wesleyan Board of Trustees chairman), Josh Boger, has been spearheading a series of carefully pinpointed micro-renovations of the existing Molecular and Life Science plant and laboratories.
As a current student, I think the math program at Wes is actually quite strong. CS on the other hand is quite weak. It is a division of the math department and there aren’t a lot of staff devoted to it or very many classes to choose from.There are students who go one to work at places like google but overall the program is not great. If you are more interested in pursuing a PhD and doing research in CS than I think its a decent foundation but if your dreams are to be a wizard programmer at a top tech company, then you might have a really tough road ahead doing CS at Wesleyan.
how about as transfer, when is going to have the best chance, Spring or Fall?
Actually my son graduated from Wes’ CS program and thought it was quite strong. He got great theoretical and mathematical underpinings for his programming (something he feels many programmers lack) and had no problem with any of the pre-interview tech tests from employers. He combined his CS degree with some strong Wes liberal arts and got a job at a Fortune 500 company in tech. Although it is true that there aren’t as many course choices as there would be with a larger program, that shouldn’t be the only consideration.