<p>Hey, I'm a freshman at Tufts, considering a major in biology. My main interests are in organisms and populations (conservation, animal behavior, ect.), not cells and genetics, and not pre-med. </p>
<p>Lately I was reading reviews about various Tufts professors and haven't found anything that really jumps out at me. I was wondering if anyone could tell me about the biology professors and courses at Tufts that aren't geared towards pre-med and cellular-level subjects. Who are the best professors? What have been the most interesting courses? </p>
<p>I'm not positive what I want to major in, but if I do want to major in biology (focusing on those areas I mentioned above), is Tufts the right place for me? I know that Tufts offers a great education no matter what, but would I be better off transferring someplace with a stronger, better known biological science department?</p>
<p>Go to the bio department and talk to someone there. That's your best bet if tuftsreviews.com hasn't helped. </p>
<p>You might also want to consider majoring in Environmental Studies. The Env St kids always show off about the close interaction with faculty, unbeatable research and travel opportunities (on Tufts' dime!), etc. It's a "second major" so you have to take another major, too. But maybe bio & envst would work for you?</p>
<p>Tufts' bio department is great. Generally, bio departments are pretty good at most competitive colleges. There is no bio department at any specific school comparable to Tufts that is noticeably better or worse.</p>
<p>Ron's biggest research project (and he did a few) was on wasp reproduction and its support of super-organism theory (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superorganism)%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superorganism)</a>. Here's the gist: all wasps are born with reproductive ability. Only one or two females in a colony lay eggs and hatch young. All the other females give up the right, more or less voluntarily, to reproduce. When so much of what we know about evolution says that the desire to reproduce is at the crux of behavior and development, why do these wasps choose to turn in their ovaries (so to speak)?</p>
<p>In pursuit of knowledge, Ron started to test whether or not a wasp's ability to provide food for the colony had any connection with dominant female status. So Ron created a harnessing system to test how much a wasp could successfully carry in flight. As of right now, Ron is the only scientist in the world who can successfully harness a wasp without killing or permanently damaging the wasp. It's why I call him the "Wasp Wrangler." I've actually watched him attach weights to the wasps and then watched them fly. It's pretty cool. </p>
<p>If Ron's research yields a connection, then the implication may likely support super-organism theory; a wasp colony should best be understood as a single organism rather than as a collection of organisms. </p>
<p>There's a lot more to Ron's story, actually, and if you'd like, I'd encourage you to look me up on the Tufts admissions website (under contact us) and I'll see if Ron has time to tell you a little about this stuff himself. And Ron isn't alone, either, there's a lot of interesting work being done on populations, and socialization between organisms. That's the benefit to being a bio major at Tufts - undergraduates do the research. They come up with ideas, and then someone says, "Ok, lets make that happen."</p>
<p>"Have I ever told you about my friend Ron? No? Then let me tell you about Ron.</p>
<p>First, you should know that Ron is awesome."</p>
<p>In response: LOL, and I must confirm that Ron is awesome. I knew he was interested in doing scientific research (and really preferred that to med school, even though research pays less than medicine) but I had no idea that this was what he was doing. That's so cool!</p>
<p>(this post, in retrospect, was pointless other than to say "Ron is a cool guy"...lol)</p>
<p>P.S. Can Ron do a study on the feasibility of Canadians riding beavers into battle?.......(if you didn't get that, you weren't supposed to)</p>
<p>Ron is amazing :) I have a lot of respect for his research, and conversations with him are hilarious as well as insightful. It still makes me sad that I won't see a lot of my friends now that we've all gone our separate ways.</p>