<p>Hi I'm going to be applying to both Smith and Wellesley and I plan to major in neuroscience or biology. I'm leaning towards pre-med right now, and an MD-PhD program would be perfect since I want to conduct research in the future.</p>
<p>Research and internship opportunities are very important to me, how are the two colleges when it comes to that? I realize that Wellesley is affiliated with MIT, how difficult is it to do research at MIT? Does Smith offer a lot of opportunities?</p>
<p>Smith has a lot of research opportunities in the sciences, particularly in biology, biochemistry, and neuroscience. There’s the STRIDE program that includes a paid research position for the first two years, but there are also plenty of research opportunities for students not in STRIDE, as well as during the summer.</p>
<p>The school holds its own conference at the end of the year where students present their research; there were a lot of posters in those areas. In addition, some of the labs associated with courses are research-oriented. In my daughter’s lab (a year-long, double-credit biology lab that replaces two regular single-semester labs, typically for first-years or sophomores) they created a poster of their research, practiced short speeches describing it, and took turns presenting during the conference.</p>
<p>For internships, Smith has the Praxis program, which pays a stipend to Smith students who do an unpaid internship over one summer. There are also a number of science-related activities, such as teaching science to high schools during January or the summer, and a student-written science research journal. Smith also has an engineering program, and you would have the opportunity to take some biomedical engineering courses.</p>
<p>If you get into Smith for either STRIDE or AEMES, you will have a lot of neuroscience research opportunities. I personally recommend Adam Hall’s lab at Smith.</p>
<p>This is interesting to note.
[Wellesley</a> Scientists to Work with Two New Major Research Centers | Wellesley College](<a href=“http://www.wellesley.edu/news/2013/10/node/39260]Wellesley”>Wellesley Scientists to Work with Two New Major Research Centers | Spotlight | Wellesley College)</p>