<p>Many times people tend to forget the sciences as a whole. They seem to implicitly include them within Engineerings while they are not an Engineering. I intend, with this message, for a ranking to be created for undergrad science programs. Science in my mind includes Mathematics, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Computer Science, and also Astronomy and Earth Sciences.</p>
<p>I am really interested in schools that are the best in BioChemistry/ComputerScience/Mathematics. Any ideas?</p>
<p>Strength of biology departments (if you're interested in biochem as bio major, not chem major):
MIT, Harvard, Caltech, Stanford, UC Berkely
Hopkins, Rockefeller, Princeton, Yale, Duke
UW-Madison, Columbia, Cornell, UC San Diego, U of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Wash U in St. Louis, UCLA, U of Chicago, U of Washington, U of Penn
UC Davis, U of Illinois-UC, U of Colorado-Boulder, U of North Carolina
Cornell, Emory, U of Texas-Austin, Northwestern, Purdue, Vanderbilt, UC Irvine
U of Arizona, Michigan State, Rice, SUNY, U of Maryland, Cargenie, Rutgers</p>
<p>but beware of these rankings though -- i find that ucsd, ucla and ucb are very mediocre in teaching their chemistry/biochemistry and related subjects (i bet so are all uc's) -- even though their chem/biochem departments rank among top 15 in the country -- ranking is one thing, and teaching people well is another</p>
<p>the reason is that there is not enough problem solving going on and a lot of material packed into people's heads very quickly without dwelling on the intricacies -- unlike history or psychology, always with chemistry and sometimes with biology you cannot just read -- you have to do some specific problems -- no one wants to grade problems of course, especially at big colleges where classes of 200+ people are common -- i've seen some professors resort to teaching from published articles, not any books or problem set, because it is very easy to teach such a class! -- one reads ones own articles that one has to read anyhow, and then summarizes them before students (but published articles never go into depth over much of anything), no preparation required, no PP presentations to make, and everyone's happy</p>
<p>in the end, students end up having a mess in their heads which they have to straighten on their own sometime before their GRE or MCAT</p>
<p>anyhow, i would not rank UC's high compared to european schools in chem/biochem -- but within US they seem to provide a sufficient education in those subjects</p>
<p>and what about math and computer science?</p>
<p>By the way I've noticed you mentioned biochem as a branch of bio and not as a branch of chem. Well I don't really mind, but until know ive seen biochem as a mixture of both, and not inclined to one branch than another.</p>
<p>The UChicago has an excellent math department of which I intend to take full advantage.</p>
<p>I know someone who has a masters from the U. of C. in computer science, and he seems to know what he is doing - though I don't think the school is particularly strong in that area.</p>
<p>some departments combine biochem with their biology department -- others with chemistry department -- so the major might be under jurisdiction of one department, or another department, or sometimes both -- my place had a biochem major under both departments -- the two majors had same name but a bit different prerequisites -- the bio department demanded more upper-div bio courses while the chem one wanted you to take more chem courses</p>