<p>I was just wondering what some of the main departments that tulane is known for at the undergraduate level. </p>
<p>I've heard some things about their neuroscience program so I just applied there for that major but I'm somewhat new to this college. Just looking for some background info</p>
<p>As you probably suspect, that is an almost impossible question to answer. Tulane is a pretty well rounded school with many strong areas. Some of those that tend to get a lot of attention in various ways, though, are Latin American Studies, Finance and Entrepreneurship (Biz School), Biomedical Engineering, Environmental Studies, English, Philosophy, Neuroscience (as you mention), and I have no doubt left out some very good ones that deserve mention. Like most research universities that have highly competitive admissions, there is a breadth of strength in undergraduate subjects. If you look at similarly sized private universities (Wash U, Vandy, Duke, etc.) you won’t really see a lot of difference in this regard at the undergraduate level. After all, for most students the undergraduate years are mostly taken up with the foundation courses and fulfilling other requirements. It would be hard to tell the difference in most freshman and sophomore level courses between these schools, and in many cases even into the junior year. In your area a big question would be research opportunities, and all these schools have that as well.</p>
<p>I don’t think the question should be what are the best departments, but instead should be does the school offer a strong learning environment across a variety of subjects and the opportunity for the talented student to get the most out of the 4 years there. I think the answer is yes for Tulane for a very large number of disciplines.</p>
<p>Well I applied mainly to Tulane only because of the Freeman School of Business.
Compared to the other schools, they offer great programs.</p>
<p>Political economy is quite highly regarded and offers some unique tracks of study.</p>
<p>Ah yes, I should have remembered that one idad. Econ, Poli Sci, and Political Economy are all good departments, very popular as well.</p>
<p>Coming into tulane (I’m a current freshman), I knew that the school wasn’t particularly well known for their physics department, but I was pleasantly surprised. It’s certainly not a huge department, it’s not MIT or caltech, but the people that compose it are all very high quality scientists and teachers (so far). The engineering physics program is still quite new and there is no dedicated faculty to ENGPHYS (as of now), so I’ve heard there’s problems with the amount of classes for that program. But as a pure physics major, with intentions of grad school, I’m quite pleased with what Tulane has for me. I actually like that it’s one of the smaller departments, because of the availability of the people who work there. I’m only half of a semester into my freshman year and I know a sizable amount of the faculty already.</p>
<p>You make an excellent point RFeynman. The faculty at Tulane are highly competent in virtually all areas (every school has the screwy prof here and there), and the fact that Tulane is so undergrad oriented is a HUGE plus. The fact that the Dean of Students is a physics prof is not a bad deal either. Always good to know people in high places, lol.</p>
<p>Reportedly, the Latin American Studies program is strong.</p>
<p>The Latin American Studies program is not only strong, I have heard it may be the best in the country.</p>
<p>Public Health!</p>
<p>mcel - Duh! (Palm slap) That is one I certainly should not have forgotten. Thanks.</p>
<p>Can anyone comment on the biology (specifically genetics) department?</p>
<p>The bio department is strong and it prepares (successfully) a large number of students to go on to medical school. I’m not sure exactly what you want to study, but Tulane doesn’t offer any kind of genetics emphasis within the biology major(s), although they do offer an intro course in genetics, and many upperlevel bio classes require this or build on the ideas presented in some way. </p>
<p>There are two biology departments: Cell & Molecular Biology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, which means there are a lot of faculty members doing a variety of research. Hope that helps?</p>
<p>You also might want to look at the research going on at the med school. I don’t know one way or the other, because I never looked into each prof’s research there that deeply, but I think there may be some specific research there involving genetics and the genome. Just seem to remember seeing something about that a while back.</p>
<p>Thanks! D thinks that she’s probably going to major in bio/genetics, hence the question. So far, while she has done the basic research on all colleges that she’s applying to, she hasn’t gone into any in-depth research on the departments. Hopefully, she’ll get to that soon - she was admitted to Tulane a couple of days ago.</p>
<p>Congrats on her acceptance! That’s great. I should have added that the med school is downtown, about 3-4 miles from the main campus Uptown, and there are shuttles back and forth. Undergrads can do research with the profs from the med school. Not quite as convenient as doing it right there on campus, but also has an interesting, different dimension to the experience.</p>
<p>Can anyone comment on the Asian Studies major? Our son is passionate about all things Japanese and Chinese, and has been taking both languages throughout HS. He knows this is an area he wants to continue studying.</p>
<p>crewguy1 - This is something I could go on about at some length, but I will try to be concise, lol. My D is a sophomore at Tulane and Asian Studies is one of her two majors, her emphasis being China.</p>
<p>In the past and for a few more months, Asian Studies is a coordinate major, which means a student majors in history or sociology or archeology (as examples) with an emphasis on Asia. However, Tulane received a Department of Education grant a couple years ago allowing them to hire more faculty and create a stand-alone major in this area. They are in the final stages of officially implementing that now, last I heard, so it should be offered as a major starting with the Fall 2011 semester. Here is a link on that from the Tulane web site. <a href=“http://tulane.edu/liberal-arts/asian-studies/majors.cfm[/url]”>http://tulane.edu/liberal-arts/asian-studies/majors.cfm</a> However, it would still make sense for you to get confirmation on this from Dean Haber’s office. She is Dean of the School of Liberal Arts. As I understand it, it will be structured as a BA in Asian Studies with three tracks: China, Japan and General Asian Studies. I am also of the understanding that Tulane has received a very nice grant from the Chinese government to create an institute for interdisciplinary studies regarding Chinese culture. Last I heard it was to be called the Confucius Institute and was to begin operating January 2011. Exciting times to be an undergrad in this area at Tulane. Certainly there are more mature programs out there (although Tulane’s relationship with Japan goes back quite a ways. China is newer but seems to be strengthening rapidly), but there are advantages to being in a dynamic program that is opening a lot of new doors. My D is hoping, for example, that China will renew a grant program they had last year where they paid all expenses for a student to study there for an entire year. We shall see. But my D is quite happy with the program so far.</p>