<p>I'm a prospie interested in biochemistry and chemistry. </p>
<p>I'd love to hear from someone who has experience studying these fields.
What has your experience is been like?
How easy is it to get undergraduate research in the sciences? Is this a possibility as a first year?
How are the science courses? Too easy? Good? Challenging? Stimulating? Boring?
What is the best part of studying science at Smith? The worst? What do you wish you knew beforehand?
What was your favorite science course and why?
How is the social atmosphere in the sciences? Do students study together or by themselves? Is there a lot of cross-over between science students and humanities students or is there a division between the two?</p>
<p>I hope MomWaitingforNew will see your post soon so you can get some answers. Her daughter is majoring in neuroscience and loves it. She’s applying to PhD programs and I understand she has been accepted at one so far. I’m sure MWFN can answer your questions and there are other science-oriented posters as well. My daughter, a first-year, is most likely a humanities major, probably English, so I can only mention she has a number of science major friends who are loving and working very hard in their courses.</p>
<p>Of course, Smith now has a fabulous, brand-new building for science and engineering, Ford Hall, and everyone is raving about it.</p>
<p>My D is first year future bio major. She went to a pretty challenging high school from which there are three soph chem majors at Smith all of whom are very happy. She loved her first bio class - found it tough and challenging and learned a lot - the current one is more math based so not as much her thing. She isn’t a big chem person and has found both chem classes tough - she is doing orgo now. She studies with other kids all the time and has met kids through her science classes. Her orgo class has study groups set up by the prof. She is taking botany and loves it. It definitely seems like the science students work together and support each other, and she has a number of friends who are not doing science she has met through her house. I don;t get hte impression things are segregated by academic interests at all.</p>
<p>I wasn’t a science major, though many of my friends were, and I would say there’s a lot of mixing between the majors socially, aided by the house system and the fact that you have to take 50% of you classes outside of your major area. </p>
<p>I think what my friends found the best about the sciences was how easy it was to do research and to do collaborative research with a professor all four years. There’s even a special event each year called “Collaborations” for students (in all disciplines) to display and talk about the work they do with professors. My friends always seemed to have extra research going, either during the semester or over the summer, or have cool summer research internships. And also you have access to research projects at all the other five colleges. </p>
<p>What I liked about the sciences at Smith, from an outsiders perspective, is the sense of openness and fun. Every year there’s a chemistry liquid nitrogen ice cream cook off where chemistry students compete to create the tastiest liquid nitro ice cream. There are special nights when you can go on the roof of McConnell Hall and the astronomy students will let you use their telescopes to look at stars. I just really enjoyed all the little chances to connect with the sciences, even if I wasn’t majoring in them. </p>
<p>Final point: the Engineering building is also a bio-molecular sciences building. Smith has a big genetics research thing going and it’s headquarted in the new building too.</p>
<p>My daughter is a second year bio major. She applied for a research position last spring in her first year and spent the summer at Smith working for one of the bio profs. She is currently taking a special studies class to write up the summer’s work. Last fall in her sophomore year, she started working for her academic advisor. She has also applied for a position in his lab this summer. Currently, she’s spending at least ten hours a week in the research lab; the group gets along well from what I can tell. Actually, by my daughter’s descriptions, I am reminded of my own experience as a graduate student.</p>
<p>For the most part, the bio and chem classes have been plenty challenging (in a good way!) for my D. I have been impressed with the one-on-one interactions she’s had with her professors. They seem genuinely concerned and enthusiastic about her future in the field, i.e. graduate school, fellowship nominations, awards, etc. She’s currently a nominee for the Barry Goldwater award, a national competition in which Smithies have been well represented. That wouldn’t have happened without the help of the profs. The bio and chemistry departments also provide extra learning opportunities such as special seminars, lunchtime lectures, etc. From what I can tell, there’s always too much to do in the sciences :-)</p>
<p>D has made plenty of science minded friends and met study buddies. On the other hand, she has found supportive friends for all of her classes, including those outside of the sciences. Friendships seem to extend across all concentrations, facilitated by the interactions in the houses.</p>
<p>My daughter’s a first-year physics major and loves it; working hard but enjoying it. The physics department is pretty small, so we met all the profs when applying, all were friendly and very helpful.
25 years ago, when I was at Smith, I took premed Bio; a great course, but huge (larger than any other course I took there, but I was mostly in the humanities). My house had several women from the same course, and we always had a study group before the tests. I was an English/Theatre major, but I don’t think that mattered in terms of socialization. I found the course challenging but fascinating, and I did well, despite my lack of science background; whether that means that it was “easy” I don’t know. The others in my study group didn’t think so! But of course, that was 25 years ago.</p>
<p>My D is a first year Neuroscience or Biochem major. Her classes have been tough-very tough-but she has survived so far and hopefully the better for it! </p>
<p>She took Cell Bio first term and loved it. It was an 8 am class (!) and she enjoyed the Prof’s teaching. She also took Chem118 which was ill-advised (she received a letter from the Prof recommending it in place of the standard Chem111)…since the course assumed a knowledge of molecular orbitals not covered in AP Chem. Oddly, this course replaces Chem224, so she doesn’t need to take this in the Chemistry series. She is taking Organic Chem and introductory Neuroscience now and also working in a lab. </p>
<p>I’m impressed by the depth and breadth covered in the science classes at Smith. I teach first year grad and med students and wish they had the Smith foundation!</p>
<p>I’ll try to persuade her to chip in with real comments ;)</p>
<p>thanks so much for this wonderful feedback!!! Smith science sounds amazing… It’s really exciting to me to hear about the wonders of Smith science… Now I’m crossing my fingers extra hard for Friday (?) !</p>
<p>upbeat – I talked to a prof when I visited and she said I would place into Cell Bio b/c of my AP credit. How hard was it? took AP Bio and did very well in both the class and on the AP.</p>
<p>Chem 118 was very difficult? I did not take the AP Chemistry test, but took a class at my school that was rumored to be more difficult than the AP class, and we DID cover molecular orbitals (my chem teacher was AMAZING but yet incredibly psycho… he used to work at a university and decided we should cover as much material as his freshman chem kids, but in more depth). My worry would be that Chem 111 would be easy, but Chem 118 much too hard… Though I REALLY shouldn’t be worrying about this now.</p>
<p>Here are some clarifications based on a conversation with my D: Cell Bio is definitely do-able but a challenge. You will be taking the class with upperclass(wo)men and that can be a bit unnerving if you are the only first year as my D was (but she hastens to say that they were really supportive). The course includes analysis of classic cell bio papers which she did very well in and she thought the accompanying lab was easy but the tests were hard. </p>
<p>True, Chem111 may be elementary if you’ve taken an advanced Chem class…the real issue with Chem118 is the way it is taught. No textbook and heavy analysis of primary literature which is hard if you’ve never done it or if Chem is not your strength. The material covered is much more in depth than covered in AP Chem and the teacher expects you to know the material at the outset (the same Prof is now teaching her Organic Chem, but the approach is totally different).</p>