<p>Science! Research! A prospie after my own heart.</p>
<p>Science majors are taken care of at Reed (despite numerous 'college guides' claiming otherwise). You'll have a good time.</p>
<p>About research... I think a lot of the previous posters are misguided.</p>
<p>Yes, Reed produces PhD's like no other. This, I believe, has more to do with the student body coming in than anything else. Everyone at Reed likes academics, and a lot see a PhD as the next step in their careers. One thing that does NOT contribute to the PhD rate is availability of undergraduate research. In fact, this is one of the reasons I considered transferring.</p>
<p>I did quite a bit of research as a high school student (in Research U's in my area), and found that finding research opportunities as an undergraduate at Reed was more difficult than when I was a high school student back home!</p>
<p>Doing research at Reed is difficult for two main reasons:
1. It's a LAC, so, although there are no grad students, there is also much, much less research going on. I emailed a few professors with my previous experience, etc, (and I was willing to work for free) and they basically replied, 'although I'd like to have you, my first priority is to my thesis students, and there simply isn't any way I can make space for you in the lab.' As an undergraduate at a Research U, you'll have significantly more opportunities to do research than you will at Reed College. This is just a fact.</p>
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<li>You have a lot of class. I think I'm in class double the time that my friends at research universities are. My classes also give me more work (comparatively) and eat up more of my free time. This just leaves less time for research. I looked into doing some work at a local research U (after I couldn't find anything at Reed) but really, unless I can work weekends, there's not time to do anything meaningful, especially when you factor in the time it'll take you to get to the research U, etc.</li>
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<p>Anyway, I should balance this post by telling you why, as a science major who's used to doing research I'm staying at this school that makes things so difficult - </p>
<p>The classes at Reed are so, so much better than what you'd get at a research U. It makes sense - at an LAC teachers are hired and tenured for teaching, and a research U, they're hired and tenured for their research and publications. And if you're looking to do some solid research in your career, I think that this sound grounding in the fundamentals is much more valuable than working in a lab and tacking on as 4'th author of some papers. Certainly a Reed education will PREPARE you intellectually to attack research, but it won't make during-school research projects easy for you to take on.</p>
<p>Anyway, yeah.</p>