<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I am a current Melbourne Uni student who's looking at doing a year in the US for a change. I got pretty good marks by Australian standards (not sure what they'd translate to in your system). And well I am a BSc student in Australia we don't choose majors till 3rd year but I am thinking of heading into Biology field.</p>
<p>Anyway to get to the point I am considering 3 American Universities on my shortlist , cost is no problem as we don't pay upfront tuition fees (sweet deal, eh? hope you don't hate me too much!). I can apply to a whole list** but my shortlist is Cornell, Berkeley and UPenn. Any thoughts on which is best for Biology would be appreciated... pros, cons, etc would be great to hear and/or any other of your thoughts? </p>
<p>Thanks All.</p>
<p>**<a href="http://www.services.unimelb.edu.au/exchanges/goabroad/ex/partners6.html#USA%5B/url%5D">http://www.services.unimelb.edu.au/exchanges/goabroad/ex/partners6.html#USA</a></p>
<p>I was not a bio major at Cornell, but while I was there I thought it would have to be the greatest place for a bio major. In addition to the offerings in the College of Arts & Sciences, they have a whole, huge College of Agriculture there, which is essentially an entire "college of applied biology". The veterinary college is also there. When I was attending, the private Boyce Thompson research institute for plant biology moved to Ithaca. So there's a ton of opportunities in biology at Cornell, seems to me.</p>
<p>I would recommend doing anything you can to place out of Biology 101-102 though, if those are still the names. Unless you like courses graded unneccessarily stringently just to weed out pre-meds, with 1,000 students sitting in a massive lecture hall. And mandatory 8 am Saturday labs. Unless this has changed??</p>
<p>There are no longer any mandatory 8AM Sat labs (in fact, you can take the lecture course without enrolling in lab). There are now two lectures per day of around 400 students each covering the same material. </p>
<p>The course is still graded unncessarily stringently just to weed out pre-meds. I guess some things don't change.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info, yeah those subjects sound like 1st year subjects to me and as I would be doing it as a second year thing I wouldnt have to do them (I don't think at least). Just another question how many subjects do you guys do in a average full semester?</p>
<p>Typically we take 4-5 classes per semester. It really depends on how demanding each class is, I know a kid that's taking 6, but would never want to do that (but then again most of my classes are math and science based, so pretty demanding)</p>
<p>I enrolled as a biology major, but will probably be switching to biological engineering (which is kind of like a joint program between engineering and biological sciences). The major here is great. Intro bio is not as bad as everyone says it is, in fact I really enjoyed it. . .the curve is steep, but it still ended up being a grade booster class for me, probably because I took AP bio.</p>
<p>The biology major is great because you can specialize in a specific concentration. . . in any of the following areas:</p>
<p>Biochemistry
Computational Biology
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
General Biology
Genetics and Development
Insect Biology
Microbiology
Molecular and Cell Biology
Neurobiology and Behavior
Nutrition
Plant Biology
Systematics & Biotic Diversity </p>
<p>The professors are amazing, and there are TONS of research opportunities available if you're interested. All the professors I've had so far have been really good teachers, in addition to conducting really interesting research. Cornell also brings guest lecturer's in all the time. In the fall they had the founder of a DNA profiling biotech company come in and talk about forensic science, it was pretty cool.</p>
<p>If you visit campus be sure to stop by and visit the undergraduate biology office in Stimpson Hall.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the info Stplayerextreme, its good to hear the proffessors are great and that there are good research oppertunities. I have good profs at Melbourne too, and yeah it was really cool we had Peter Doherty in the Nobel Prize winning immunologist, he works at Melbourne. I find that stuff inspiring (even if we never get to talk to them). Just two more questions, can you do all those majors under CALS 'cause I think if I get there I might be restricted to majors within the CALS program. Umm yeah not much chance of me getting to visit, Melbourne is about 5000 miles away or more, umm so yeah in your own opinion hows the campus and campus life? One more thing whats an AP (sorry not up on the american university terminology!)?</p>
<p>it stands for Advanced Placement. they're high school courses that are the equivalent of certain college introductory classes. after taking an AP class in high school, students take a test that can potentially give them enough credit to skip the college intro course.</p>
<p>The major's I listed are concentrations within the biology major that can be taken at either CAS or CALS. So, especially since you are not in-state, you might as well apply to CAS so you won't be restricted, if you feel that you would be.</p>
<p>The campus is huge, but beautiful. Pictures don't seem to do it justice. Students are friendly, and there's always tons to do. The social scene is fairly greek dominated, but there are plenty of other things to do on campus if you're not into that. During the week things usually buckle down, except for "Thirsty Thursday". If you don't mind the cold, Ithaca is great, although this winter has been EXTREMELY mild. Like it rained today, and that's pretty much unheard of in February. . .we have no snow, and most days have been above freezing.</p>
<p>any other more specific questions feel free to message me.</p>
<p>Recently I spoke to UCLA proffesor, who said that the other thing to take note of at Cornell is that its often very very cold. How cold is it? and do you find it means that your restricted in what you do? Being an Australian myself I am used to mid 20's and anything below 15 is pretty cold to me.</p>
<p>Well, Cornell is going to seem cold compared with UCLA lol</p>
<p>The winters are no fun but it's manageable. It's been in the mid-30's for most of the past couple of weeks.</p>
<p>You guys are comparing different temperature scales - Fahrenheit vs. Celsius.</p>
<p>Aussie-Steve, it will be -5 to 5 C degrees for most of your time at Cornell. The only time it would be as warm as 15 degrees is at the very beginning and very end of the school year.</p>
<p>Oh, thanks for that... didnt even think of the fact that you guys use farenheit (nuts if you ask me). Cheers Midwestern. Damn that is sure cold, I think that this is going to way in favour of Berkeley, does anyone know how warm Philli is?</p>
<p>phila is a little warmer than ithaca, but the winters are comperable. the philadelphia area got over a foot of snow the other day...</p>
<p>I think you should take biog 101-104 even if it is a weedout class. It gives you a reality check to see if you really are cut out for the work. It also prepares you for other classes such as orgo in terms of building a work ethic. Med school is even harder than college, so if you can't survive an intro bio course, how will you be able to survive med school?</p>
<p>Fudgemaster I think you misunderstood my comments, first of all I'm not interested in doing Med and second of all I have all ready completed first year at my University and won't be doing first year subjects (I think that subject is a first year subject), I've already done a subject which sounds fairly similiar to this.</p>