<p>I'm a British student in my first year of college (equivalent of junior year of high school) atm and I am looking at different US programmes and wondered if you could help! I want to come over to the states for college and do a premed track with a physics major. Right now, as stated in the title, I am looking at UPenn and JHU with a view to probably apply to JHU medical programme but being an International student makes it difficult to know how good colleges are for subjects. Are there good choices? Are there better premed/physics programmes that I should look at?</p>
<p>Grades won't be an issue as I'm a straight A* grade student however if the college doesn't offer any funding for international students then I will probably give them a miss!</p>
<p>I am actually a junior physics major at Penn. I really love the physics department here, my Professors have been wonderful, very open to answering questions, and there are a ton of research opportunities both in physics and in interdisciplinary fields like mechanical engineering and materials science. There is also the opportunity to take graduate classes as an undergrad at Penn in many departments. Within the physics department, we have a lot of research in biophysics, which might interest you as a pre-med. We also have a separate biophysics major and a biological physics concentration within the physics major. Another great thing about Penn for students who want to do research in medical fields is that the medical school is literally right next to the freshman quad. I know several students who are currently working in labs over there.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply! That’s really good to hear!
I will probably not want to go into biophysics as I’m interested in the cosmological side to physics (black holes, dark matter, space-time). I suppose I will be taking the more theoretical side of physics adjacent to any prerequisites for med school! Although I guess the situation of the med school being right next to the freshman quad is convenient as I will inevitably be doing medical research in terms of chem and biology so that is really useful!</p>
<p>Thanks again :)</p>
<p>EDIT: How is the lacrosse there? I play for Wales national team so I’m not that bad a player and would be interested in playing at college! I support the Phillies so UPenn would be great for watching home games! :D</p>
<p>You won’t get into any serious cosmology as an undergrad, and you certainly won’t be doing that research in med school; the physics undergrad curriculum is pretty standardized with a few slots for electives.</p>
<p>If that’s your interest, is there a particular reason you want to be premed?</p>
<p>In any case, each school is pretty good at physics and excellent at medicine, so I don’t think you can really go wrong with either one.</p>
<p>I love physics but I don’t think I want a career in it so, in essence, I’m studying a subject of interest alongside subjects preparing me for a vocation in medicine.</p>
<p>I know we wont get into lots of the advanced stuff on black holes, general relativity etc but a bit on quantum fields etc would be nice! Although, thinking about it, I guess it will be less in-depth than the physics at British Universities I am used to (since we only study one subject). Perhaps I should look at the curricula for both JHU and UPenn! </p>
<p>Majoring in a subject I love also has the upside of being a nice backup if I decide being a doctor isn’t what I thought it would be. I could always go into post-graduate research after college if I want. The reason I asked about cosmology is because surely some universities give a more theoretical approach to physics than others :)</p>
<p>You could <em>maybe</em> take a class in field theory your senior year if you were particularly ahead; it would probably have a graduate quantum mechanics class as a prereq, but you could likely ignore that if you really wanted to (it would be challenging though). You probably will be able to take a GR course as an elective though.</p>
<p>Yep, I suppose taking a graduate level course is an option. Especially if it’s in quantum field theory </p>
<p>The GR course probably wont use any differential geometry in vector fields, geometry of lie groups (in terms of homogeneous space) or in fibre bundles and instantons which is where my interest in GR lies.</p>
<p>The main thing I want to study is the information paradox regarding black hole evaporation (linking in with the Hawking effect) but I doubt that gets touched until PhD level!</p>
<p>Maybe I will end up going to physics graduate school before medical school at this rate hahaha</p>
<p>I know several undergrads who took the GR course at Penn, three of them even took it as juniors. It is a very challenging course, it uses a lot of differential geometry which you do go over in the beginning of the course, but it would help to have prior knowledge.
Penn is really great in particle physics and cosmology. Two of my professors this semester actually work in that area.</p>