I just toured WPI and I loved the campus. However, I was unable to see the chemistry labs/rooms while on the tour and did not bother to find them because it was snowing. I want to major in chemistry and minor in bioinformatics and computational biology, so I was wondering how good the programs are. Also (for anyone who has been to WPI) what attracted you to the school. Thanks
This website may help. Poke around. There is a lot of information here @ https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/bioinformatics-computational-biology Check out the faculty. FYI the NSF Career is one of the most respected awards given to young faculty. NOTE:While many schools offer BCB as a concentration within a traditional Biology program, WPI’s program comprises three academic departments: Biology, Computer Science, and Mathematics. At this site you can review both the major and the minor options in this field.
For Chemistry and Biochemistry see: https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/chemistry-biochemistry
By all means, check out the faculty and note the entire undergraduate program is built around research projects. See https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/wpi-plan
Goddard Hall is home plate for most chemistry/life science undergraduate labs at WPI: see https://www.wpi.edu/about/locations/goddard-hall It has 21,000 sq ft of open space laboratories which were completely renovated in 2008. Minor updates are constant.
Gateway Research Park is part of the WPI campus. Building one is designed as a 125,000 sq ft interdisciplinary research center in the life sciences. By its very nature, science is interdisciplinary. Particularly in new fields like this.
For enrollment by major go to page 17 the the 2016 Fact Book @ https://www.wpi.edu/offices/institutional-research/enrollment-data
I was attracted to the school so many years ago it does not count anymore. Worcester is one of the US’s very first industrial cities. Boston was into finance and banking. The barbed wire for the old west that lead to all those range wars, was made in Worcester. The graduates ran the city. I lived in Massachusetts and it was the reputation relayed to me by my parents and grandparents. It was unique when founded as only the third engineering school in the US and it was “hands on” by Civil War Standards. It is probably more innovative today than it has ever been!
WPI '67.
The chemistry department at WPI is strong for undergrad, though I probably would not recommend WPI for grad studies in the sciences. It’s probably not the strongest research department, yet you can get a strong education in Chemistry (and other sciences) at WPI – and likely at many other schools as well. So at this level, it probably comes down to fit.
I’ve heard good things about the biology program as well. Though the biology class I took (required for graduation) was memorization-intensive and did not really test insight very much (sample size: 1). I’ve heard similar things about biology courses elsewhere as well.
It’s not unusual to see strong chemistry students at WPI to Yale, UC Berkeley, Harvard, and other great places for graduate school. That will come down to your research experience and the quality of the recommendations your professors can write you.
Grad school in biology and chemistry is fairly demanding in terms of hours so I’d consider that when determining your future path. Lots of sub-areas such as computational biology are very promising though and have potential for breakthrough discoveries with large social impact.
I could not agree more regarding the “memorization-intensive” nature of your biology class.
Organic chemistry and basic biology has always been particularly heavy with memorization at the basic levels. Not many of us are familiar with the Latin and the Greek. This still remains a sound argument for reviving classic language studies, but it is already “water over the dam” so we have to work harder with memorization to master many life science basics. I know this as the student who loved math, physics and inorganic chemistry than ran into the memory challenges of organic chemistry. I finally realized what my classically trained father was talking about!
Some of use do the math, others of us memorize!
Another, old age, flashback: Experience Can Bring Perspective:
Sir James Danielli (@ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Danielli) headed the Biology Department at WPI in the 1970’s. He also had led the scientific brain trust in Britain during WWII and had two or three earned PhD’s at a very early age. As my wife worked in his office on the Journal of Theoretical Biology, we were invited to his home for dinner. At that time I was an Economics graduate student and mathematical tools were very important in that subject area. Being the polite host he was, he asked about my studies which led to my handing him a classic, unsolved fixed point theorem problem which had caught his interest. A week or two later I asked him if he found it interesting. This world famous biologist answered that he was not well versed on the mathematics so he could not pass comment on its content. The tools in his kit, did not include linear algebra. This experience taught me that even very smart people with a lot of education and experience cannot be expected to know everything. Everything keeps changing. But experience can bring perspective and an awareness of the constant evolution in all fields. No program gives you all the facts or even all the tools needed to solves all the problems you may encounter. “Learn how to learn” becomes the mantra.