<p>Only a few days from the May 1 deadline, I unfortunately still haven't made a decision in where I will be going to college. I think I have narrowed it down to University of Rochester or Nazareth College. Thinking of the pros and cons of each college, I have so many questions running through my head. One of the major ones is I was wondering if it would be much more difficult to keep a high gpa at U of R than at a small liberal arts college like Nazareth. I know without a high gpa there won't be any chance of me getting into med school if I decide that is the route I want to take.</p>
<p>Also, if there is any current students on here, especially science students, I have a question for you. Do you know your professors on a personal level? Like do you feel that you could easily approach them and they know your name and you are not completely intimidated by them?</p>
<p>Not a science student, but the mom of one. (And a pre med at that!) D2 has felt very comfortable approaching her professors for every one of her classes. She was impressed that in her first big lecture class (approx 200-250 students), the professor memorized every single student’s name within the first couple of weeks and knew who she was when she went to office hours.</p>
<p>Intimidation is a state of mind. You have to be Ok with talking with adults and not be afraid to approach them. D makes it a point to go by office hours the first month of class for all her big lecture classes to introduce herself to her professors. That way she meets them when there is no pressing problem and she’s not asking for anything from them. I can only think of 1 professor D felt intimidated by in her 3 years at UR–and that prof retired at the end of last semester so you can’t possible have a class with her. (The prof in question was in her 70s and a Nobel Prize nominee in her field [neuroscience]. She was very “brisk” students, didn’t suffer fools lightly. However, when D did go see her during office hours–the woman was very approachable and she and D had a surprisingly pleasant conversation.)</p>
<p>I won’t try to sugarcoat it—there are alot of premeds at UR and many of them are smart, hard-working kids. That means you will face some pretty stiff competition for grades during the first 2 years of pre med ‘weed out’ classes. But it is possible to do well [science] GPA-wise at UR if you have an aptitude for the material and are willing to put into the hours needed to do well. And there are some incredible research opportunities for students who wish to pursue them.</p>
<p>The good news is that UR is remarkable free of “gunner” pre meds. (Google the term to see what those are. Gunners will make your life miserable.)</p>
<p>I had a chance run-in with a kid in cognitive science who told me he has a job with a professor because he asked a question after class. He walked up, said he didn’t know much about the area but found it interesting and asked a few questions about the material. They must have been good questions because the professor said he should come see him and then offered him a job. Doesn’t sound intimidating.</p>
<p>As to gunners, my dad told me stories of going to school with WWII vets, some combat veterans. He said they’d literally do anything to get ahead of you, like destroying your fetal pig so you couldn’t do the work. </p>
<p>As to approachability, this is really an overblown issue to me. It’s always up to the student to walk up to a professor or to go to his or her office. All schools require office hours. Very few students come, even at the very well known schools. One of my children went to a very large school and found she could establish relationships with any professor just by showing up during office hours. The only “downside” turned out to be they’d try to recruit her as an interested student into their departments. Remember: all academic departments are in some way in competition. They compete for resources, for attention, for the best students. They want bright, interested kids to come to them. And then they tend to want to help those kids.</p>
<p>And also remember, these people are teachers. At UR, the Rochester Curriculum is what they call “interest-driven,” meaning there are so few requirements kids take courses they want to take and thus teachers don’t have rooms filled with kids looking to satisfy a distribution requirement. That means a professor at UR believes the kids are there because they want to be there. Some of the “attitude” professors may develop comes from teaching classes that people are taking as a requirement: who wants to be there to do that? As an example, the Dean of UR teaches a class, alternating between grad and undergrad, and works with grad students (in philosophy) and he’ll tell you to your face that it’s great to teach interested kids.</p>