<p>Hi current students and alums,
please help me with this question...</p>
<p>Rice is basically perfect but I'm really worried about the quality of professors and therefore the classes and education. Can you tell me about how good/bad the profs are, especially in the social sciences/ sciences department? Are there a lot of discussion classes? </p>
<p>What happened : During Owl Days I visited 4 classes, mostly intro ones, and saw the social sciences panel and was generally dissapointed. The profs looked brilliant at what they do, but their classes weren't engaging at all. I fell asleep twice.</p>
<p>I am basically down to final 2 choices: Rice and a wonderful, prestigious, rural liberal arts college. I visited both schools and love them both. Rice is significantly cheaper with a scholarship (I can barely afford the liberal arts school), and I love the residential colleges and people and everything but I don't want to end up at a place where the teachers suck...</p>
<p>Thank you ! Examples and anecdotes are appreciated</p>
<p>Oh also, I asked a lot of Rice freshman about their profs and got a lot of shrugs and equivocation. One even said "Ugh they’re ok…the TAs are great though, sometimes better than the professors. "
As a liberal arts-lover, that made me gag. </p>
<p>But since freshmen take mostly intro classes, can someone tell me if upper-level teachers/classes are better? Esp. social sciences/ pre med stuff.</p>
<p>As with anywhere else, it varies. As a physics major, I’ve had amazing, brilliant professors, and I’ve had professors who consistently put me to sleep. You don’t have to wait until upper level to find the good ones, though. My physics professor freshman year was absolutely outstanding, and his class cemented my plans to continue with a physics major. Honestly, though, I can’t imagine the distribution would be much different elsewhere, even at an LAC.</p>
<p>I really haven’t had any professors that I’d describe as “bad.” I’ve had a handful of mediocre profs, and mostly I’ve had great ones. I’m curious as to what classes you sat in on.</p>
<p>couple of things, Rice has excellent professors. We wouldnt be ranked so high if that were not true.</p>
<p>Lectures arent everything. What I like about Rice is the easy accessibility to professors and how you can talk to them/hang out/do research with them easily.</p>
<p>Owl Days was at a crappy time, right before finals. The lectures arent the best then and are mostly review.</p>
<p>NYSkins1, I sat in on an Intro to International Relations; Science of Language; Intro to Cognitive Psychology; a philosophy class of some sort. </p>
<p>(oh I stayed at Lovett during Owl Days :])</p>
<p>Also, how many discussion classes are there? Can you guys tell me what department you are in? Thank you very much for input</p>
<p>I’m in that Intro to Cog Psych class and while it is not one of the most interesting, because it’s an intro class, that day was not particularly good because we were getting near the end of the semester and covering a few last minute things briefly. Earlier in the semester the class was more interesting. But again it’s not really the profs fault. I find her to be a good lecturer especially on language, which is her area of research. There will definitely be more discussion at the higher level classes than in the few intro classes you sat in on.</p>
<p>I’m a Political Science major. I haven’t taken Intro to IR yet, but I’ve heard great things about the class. A different prof teaches it in the fall… maybe you’ll like him (Stoll) better if you take it then. Supposedly he’s a little harder, but I’ve heard great things about his lectures. I took Intro to to Comparative Politics in the fall, and I can assure you that Dr. Ambler is incredible. I always enjoyed going to class, and the discussion sections every Friday were usually very engaging. I’m sorry that you sat in on LING 200… I took that as well, and I wanted to shoot myself. The class is on the easy side, but it’s incredibly boring no matter who’s teaching it.</p>
<p>Other than LING 200, I’ve loved all of my professors at Rice. Heck, even the linguistics guy was okay… I just didn’t like the material as much as I thought I would. It’s probably fair to say that Rice will have no more mediocre professors than the LAC you’re considering. No matter where you go to school, professors are human, and not all of them are capable of giving an over the top lecture every day. Yes, there’s a huge difference between Rice and UT in that while our professors do research, you won’t be sitting in a lecture hall with 299 other students and a professor who can only think about his or her upcoming thesis while delegating most of the teaching duties to his or her TAs. Rice definitely has a liberal arts feel when it comes to its focus on undergraduate education and engagement, and I don’t think you’d be compromising much of anything by coming here… especially if it’s that much cheaper :)</p>
<p>most research universities have the problem: professors are more interested in doing
research than teaching.</p>
<p>LACs are good because professors are focusing on teaching.</p>
<p>But, you are college students, not high school students. If you need teacher to
tell you every details of the lectures, probably you wont do well by yourself anyway.</p>
<p>GOOD colleges are good because they have good student bodies.</p>
<p>I disagree with you brown2009. While many research universities have this problem, I don’t think Rice does. I have not had a single professor who hasn’t dedicated more than enough time to their teaching over their research. You might not be able to see this as a prospie, but when you are a student and professors are willing to set up special appointments outside of their office hours, you feel like they are dedicated to their students as well as their research.</p>
<p>Rice has a lot of bad professors because they got their jobs for the money their research pulls in and not their teaching ability. Rice also has many engaging professors. Maybe I’m just jaded, but I don’t feel like teaching ability matters. The professors are there to assign a grade and upload course documents. It’s the student’s responsibility to learn the material no matter who the professor is. If for some reason you don’t understand some concept, you can go to a help session or ask the professor. You’ll get your answer regardless of that professor’s teaching ability.</p>
<p>My experience was similar to OP’s. I took Principles of economics (211? i think with this prof Brito) and it was mad boring. The student sitting next to me said it was the worst class she’d ever taken.
Someone please tell me not all econ classes are like this.</p>
<p>ECON 211 has a notorious reputation for being a weed-out, “mad boring” class, as you so nicely phrased it, TheFutureIsHere ;)</p>
<p>It’s your standard basic economics fundamental course, so it’s not supposed to be exhilarating (unless you are an economics fanatic), but as you go higher up, the professors are a lot more engaging and the classes are much better. ECON 211 unfortunately just has that lone reputation as the horrible class everyone hates (or not, for a small minority?) but has to take because it’s a pre-requisite for not only the economics major but also some other interdepartmental majors/minors and also fulfills the D2 distribution requirement. Also, the fact that so many people take it, chances are you have a friend or a group of friends also taking it at the same time, so working in groups with your friends for the same class is appealing.</p>
<p>For Johnny Bear’s comment: I completely agree. So many students complain that it’s the professor’s fault for teaching a horrible class and for giving out highly subjective grades for one reason or another - but they never take some time to consider, “Oh, maybe I should’ve gone to more TA sessions. Oh, I should’ve gone to office hours, found a study buddy, studied more, asked questions in class…” and so on and so forth. It’s not a one-way street - the professors teach the material but it’s up to you and your responsibility to master it. After all, it’s your money paying for your education, so I would advise all incoming freshmen to take advantage of all the resources available (TA sessions, office hours, tutoring by upperclassmen, etc).</p>
<p>DD had some absolutely fabulous profs; she also had a few that were not as engaging but knew their stuff. She made liberal use of the “shopping” period at the beginning of each semester since there were always more classes that she wanted than she could find time to take. Rice makes it easy to add/drop classes, and she never had a problem adding a class even if it was full. It really is unfortunate, the timing of Owl Days this year; review classes are not particularly interesting!</p>
Rice makes it easy to add/drop classes, and she never had a problem adding a class even if it was full. It really is unfortunate, the timing of Owl Days this year; review classes are not particularly interesting!</p>