<p>There are excellent chances for undergrad research at UCLA, and not washing dishes. The person would have to be a star, but it sounds like this might be the case wrt the OP.</p>
<p>That’s good to know. UCLA’s chemistry graduate program is one of the most highly thought of in the country, and Berkeley’s might well be the best.</p>
<p>… that would shine forth on the undergrad program if that’s what you’re intimating by your statement.</p>
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<p>Btw, do you know where I can find the syntax where I can nest links in my text instead of having them stand alone? I like doing that better than how I have been linking. I know this site is different from html which uses “<” instead of brackets or “[” as is done here.</p>
<p>No, actually there is no “halo effect” (that is the term for what you mean) from the grad program to the undergrad. In fact it is sometimes the opposite unfortunately. This I know quite well and I have to say is indisputable. The pressure of keeping up a large research team and writing grant proposals and publishing many papers, not to mention the ego that often infuses these professors that are vying for honors and recognition and big consulting $$, means that undergrads are often an annoyance to them and that TA’s (grad students and post-docs) are often given that duty. Certainly any individual professor might be an exception, but in aggregate it is a true statement. Even if they are the nicest people in the world (and unfortunately many are not), world-class researchers just do not have the time, there are so many demands on them. Ah well.</p>
<p>Here is the list of codes, see if it helps you. [College</a> Confidential - BB Code List](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/misc.php?do=bbcode]College”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/misc.php?do=bbcode)</p>
<p>… the “halo effect.”</p>
<p>But the better grad progams would undoubtedly bring in better students, and this would seemingly show forth a halo effect, ;), on the undergrad program, as they TA them.</p>
<p>And as someone stated, this might bring forth more cutting-edge methodology in the classroom, which might lead to a more “with-it” group of undergrads.</p>
<p>Is it better to be taught, at least somewhat indirectly, by someone who’s intently publishing and trying to break new ground in his/her field, or be taught by someone, more directly, who might even be going through the motions, tenured, maybe older, maybe set-in-his ways, etc. It might not be so cut and dried, wouldn’t you think?</p>
<p>I know that besides publishing, Dr Cram at UCLA, Nobelist, who also did his undergrad at UCLA, would teach undergrad classes to keep himself grounded, etc. </p>
<p>I understand what you’re saying, and big-headed academicians would be a problem anywhere, probably as you said, more so at research-based universities.</p>
<p>But what we’re saying here may be moot, probably is, because the OP will probably major in something other than chem. Given the odds, it would seem that way, unless there’s a post of hers I missed. And I don’t know how we got on the whole chem thing, other than we know you’re a chemist.</p>
<p>Anyway…</p>
<p>Thanks for the link.</p>
<p>No problem about the link. And you are right, I use chemistry as an example because I know it well (although was a chemist is the more correct phrasing), but the physical sciences, and many other areas as well, are all pretty similar in this regard. BTW, Dr. Cram is exactly who I had in mind when I said there are individual exceptions. He is a great chemist and a very nice guy.</p>
<p>I understand none of this helps the OP. At this point it is just a discussion. In that spirit:
This is a tempting arguement that I knew you would make and I almost preempted it in my last post, but decided to wait and see if you made it. It is partly true, but mostly not, for the sole reason that grad students in the sciences go to a lot of classes themselves in the first couple of years, while trying to TA and do some research, and then are expected to spend at least 12 hours a day in the lab besides being a TA. It is a slave labor system, make no mistake about it. So they are stretched pretty thin too. However, many of them do love to teach and some are very good at it. I certainly won’t deny that. But I still get back to the fact that no matter how poor a teacher a full professor may be and how good a grad student may be, people are paying big bucks for a university education and they want professors teaching as often as possible. That is just a reality.</p>
<p>As far as cutting edge methodology, that made me chuckle. There isn’t a lot of cutting edge you can bring to freshman chem, Organic chem and PChem courses, they are pretty set with material that takes 2 semesters to cover and haven’t really changed much in 40 years at least. The same would be true for intro classes in other science areas. I will grant you that a couple of courses senior year might benefit from being taught by a Dr. Cram or someone else of his caliber (more or less), but I wouldn’t base an entire decision of where to attend undergrad on that. You would pick up the same course by attending UCLA for grad school.</p>
<p>Been there, done that with all the above. It always comes back to the same thing. There is the big school, high level research school experience like UCLA, and there is the smaller school, not so grad school/not-so-research oriented school like Tulane, at least not research in the same manner as UCLA. Just two different worlds, and people need to pick which one suits them best.</p>
<p>There were only so many directions one could take in arguing these points. </p>
<p>Thanks for clarifying your expertise in them. But if I may say so, you seem a bit jaded at least in the whole process, certainly of research, and of ‘slave labor,’ etc.</p>
<p>As you said:</p>
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<p>I did say, ‘more cutting-edge methodology,’ not complete, or such that these students would become master chemists as sophs. But better grad students might be able to convey some ideas, in at least a fresher approach, and would be closer to being peers of these students, which might help.</p>
<p>And the way you described the whole process of frosh chem, it didn’t sound as though it really mattered if these underclassmen were taught by a TA or a prof, since these materials ‘haven’t really changed in the last 40 years.’ Does this make sense? </p>
<p>What is it about a prof that might help these kids to learn better, material that is so basic that grad students would certainly know as much as him or her? I found from my experience that the question of being able to convey things across to me the student would be the instructor’s knowlege of the materials at hand.</p>
<p>Or is your thrust that these profs are being paid for such; therefore they must teach, or should teach?</p>
<p>And later, it didn’t sound like even as upperclassmen, that things would even matter much but ‘for a couple courses,’ even if they were be taught by Dr Cram.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, thanks for clarifying and giving your opinions. Maybe someone can learn some things from your posts about the whole process.</p>
<p>Well, I am having trouble imagining any cutting edge methodology one could bring to these courses. But under your theory, they should only let grad students teach the courses, since they will always be “fresher” and closer to being peers of the students. For better or worse, there is an expectation that a professor that has finished his PhD and taught for some amount of time will be better, or at least more knowledgable, than a TA. There is a big difference between the material not substantially changing for a long time and being experienced in teaching it. A certain operation might be routine and unchanged for decades also, but I sure don’t want a 2nd year med school student doing it. No matter how you slice it, I don’t go to college wanting to be taught by TA’s. It might be a reality in many cases, but it wouldn’t be my a priori choice.</p>
<p>What I meant about the upperclass level courses is that most undergrads will only have time in their 4 year schedule to take one or two of these. They are great to take, but would I base a decision on where to go undergrad on that? No.</p>
<p>Oh, and I am not jaded at all. It is just the reality of the system, and has been for decades. The “slave labor” comment was just normal conversational hyperbole. There was one professor where I went that scheduled his group meetings on Monday nights for the express reason that he knew that otherwise the grad students would be watching Monday Night Football (there were no Sunday night or Thursday night games then). A minor but typical example of the mentality.</p>
<p>… Professors should lecture, and TAs should lead discussion and lead labs.</p>
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<p>I don’t doubt that’s true for, say, a humanities class. Because no matter how much one studies Shakespeare’s Sonnets, there’s going to be something the prof doesn’t know about and therefore the TA probably wouldn’t either; or that the prof would know about and for which the TA wouldn’t, say, some oblique reference to such-and-such stanza or passage. (Btw, no I wasn’t an Engilsh major, a lot because of English 10 series.) </p>
<p>So someone can approach the prof and ask a question he/she wouldn’t be able to answer. ‘I’ll have to get back to you on that one, later.’ </p>
<p>I don’t think it would be as critical as, say, a prof not knowing about something in chem, when a student has approached him/her about it.</p>
<p>But then as you say, chem frosh year would be so rudimentary, that one wouldn’t expect a student to approach a TA or prof with a question that he/she wouldn’t be able to answer. Most likely said student would approach the TA or prof with an even more rudimentary question than the level of the class with questions of understanding.</p>
<p>I think classes in the sciences tend to be more perfunctorily led exercises that could easily led by a TA if needed (of those science classes I did take, not much): A -> B -> C -> D, etc. This is why one has textbooks in the sciences, rather than a ton of books, all at the prof’s discretion in the humanities, etc. And even then when papers are due, the student will reference many other books.</p>
<p>We always hear about, 'prof just teaches from a textbook." This wouldn’t be said of a science prof for the most part because where else is he going to teach from unless it’s research? </p>
<p>Go ahead an answer, and then maybe we can put our conversation to bed. I do like conversing with you, but for the sake of the OP, maybe we should end this.</p>
<p>Consider it ended. Nice chatting with you.</p>