<p>I understand that Brown is a great school in nearly every department, but I was wondering if there were specific departments that are more well-known than others.</p>
<p>Classics and Philosophy are supposed to be some of the top in the nation. The bio department is exremely strong as well, but I don't know about its ranking or anything. (Bio ScB and philosophy major here)</p>
<p>International Relations, Neuroscience, and Egyptology are also well-known departments.</p>
<p>GHBrown08 - do you have any complaints about the Philosophy Department?</p>
<p>One or two of the profs are a little strange, but all in all they are an extremely sharp group of people. No real complaints!</p>
<p>Thanks for replying GHBrown08, but have another question that I forgot to ask: Are the classes small and intimate and do they focus on discussions/debates or are they big and lecture-like? Also, is philosophy a large major at Brown? Thanks</p>
<p>I have taken 4 philosophy classes so far (and two in the poli sci department towards my philosophy concentration). Logic and Ancient philosophy were fairly large, with logic being about 100 people and ancient maybe 30-40. Ancient also had a discussion section in addition to lecture. Moral philosophy was about 20 peple, with lots of participation. I took a class called decision theory this spring, and there were 5 of us. I really enjoyed that one (Dreier is very good, and extremely intelligent) I think that some of the more intro/required classes are bigger (logic, ancient, early modern), but there are plenty of seminars which are intimate. I believe that each professor has at least one seminar class each semester... </p>
<p>Not sure how many people major in philosophy, actually. There are 3 tracks, ethics/political, science/logic, and just plain philosophy. I'm working on the ethics/political track.</p>
<p>GHBrown08 -- can you tell me more about Decision Theory? I'm trying to decide whether it's worth my time to take an extra semester of Calc plus Econometrics in order to get to the Econ class on game theory. Is Decision Theory similar? Might that be a better option for me?</p>
<p>It wasn't a course in game theory, though we did cover some of the basics. If you are looking for a rigorous course in game theory the econ department is probably where you need to go. We talked about some probability, the expected utility function and its axioms, game theory, and finally social choice theory.</p>
<p>If you pm me your email address I could mail you the syllabus. I should probably tell you, though, that I think the class is only offered every other year, so the next time will probably be spring 08. You could email dreier and ask him I guess...</p>
<p>GHBrown-- what classes did you take in the poli sci department that count towards your concentration? Thanks for your help</p>
<p>Its sort of on a approval basis, but I've been told I could use ps11 and the ps182 seminar on classical liberalism that I took. I haven't filled out the philosophy concentration paperwork yet though....</p>
<p>I know the IR major at Brown is really good but does its popularity affect class size (as in, are the classes larger than they are in other majors)? Also, could someone who is an IR major tell me what they like/dislike about the department? Lastly, what do most people who majored in IR do after graduation (Peace Corp, NGO's, etc)?</p>