A niece has been accepted to Berkeley and Northwestern, and her intended major is chemistry.
Current considerations:
Cost: Out-of-state and full pay. Therefore, the difference is almost negligible.
Location: She has lived on the East Coast all her life, so sunny CA sounds somewhat appealing.
Reputation seems solid for both programs.
Questions:
Some folks told me that classes at UC tend to be huge, and not all of them are taught by the professors but their TAs. Is this true?
How’s the general rep of each program in the eyes of future employers (academia and industry)? Her HS counselor casually mentioned that Berkeley has produced several Nobel laureates in chemistry, but I seem to recall that an NU professor also won one a few years back?
Several family members have attended NU, yet none of us know much about UCB. Any insights would be highly appreciated.
If the cost is equal, I’d go with Northwestern for undergrad. The California sun will always be there for grad school. And so will the Nobel laureates!
The biggest class in the nation is taught at UCB. Intro to CS has over 1000 students and Wheeler Hall holds 750. They have to overflow into video classes. Plenty of other classes are big too, although not Wheeler big. None of the lectures are taught by TAs, but you can be assured that most of the labs and discussions in the Chemistry Department will be. That’s simply the nature of big research institutions.
As for reputations, they’re both good and it’s a little moot. A Chemistry BS only is not a super marketable degree. Your daughter probably has higher aspirations than being a lab tech or in sales. That’s means grad school or some sort of professional program (medicine, optometry, dentistry, etc.). Either would be fine launching pads to the next level.
I went to a big lecture, labs and discussions taught by TAs, mostly with difficult accents school for my undergrad. My optometry class was “big” and it only had 100 students. My son went to a school with smaller classes and virtually no TA’s for engineering (BS/MS). Having seen both ways, I have a HEAVY bias against the experience I went through in undergrad.
@ucbalumnus would have a much more balanced opinion of Berkeley though even as an alum and will be able to give you accurate class sizing for the courses germane to your daughter.
At most research universities, the usual format for lower level courses has a faculty member delivering the primary lecture, but with lab and discussion sections run by PhD student TAs.
Class sizes can often be found on the college’s schedule of classes web site.
Northwestern chemistry is one of the best in the world and you wouldn’t need to worry about its reputation within the chemistry community. At the same time, NU would provide all the resources/advantages a top private U would have. For example, there are only around 40 majors per class so there are more chemistry faculty than majors per class, which translates to plenty of undergrad research opportunities available. NU is very flexible about double-majoring, adding a minor, switching majors, etc. That’s more difficult with state schools in general but I don’t know the specifics about UCB.
It’s hard to beat the weather in the Bay Area. But another important thing to consider is housing. Many “on-campus” housing at UCB are not literally on campus and can be pretty far from where one takes classes. There are shuttles but it’s just not as convenient and you do not want to walk a long distance at night in Berkeley. For off-campus housing, unless the family is rich, finding anything affordable and comfy at the same time is very challenging and competitive around Berkeley. There may be “affordable” options but those could mean squeezing 3, 4 or more people into a 2-bd apt ($4-5k/mo or even more depending on the amenities/age/location). In contrast, the housing situation in Evanston is a lot more “normal”.
