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I'm currently a student at a large (largest in the UC system) public research university, and I don't see any problem with excluding schools like UC Berkeley fr
by loser777 14y ago
I'm currently a student at a large (largest in the UC system) public research university, and I don't see any problem with excluding schools like UC Berkeley from the top 20. While we, like Berkeley, are a "research powerhouse," spend a little time as an undergraduate on campus and you will quickly realize how little the phrase "research powerhouse" really means to you. Professors are hired for research, not teaching, which means many are apathetic towards students while others clearly shouldn't be involved in the teaching process at all. There are some outstanding professors in terms of teaching, but the important caveat here is that at a large public research school teaching--which heavily affects the undergraduate experience is not a priority.
Some argue that being at a large research school offers, as the name implies, a large number research opportunities for undergraduates. That idea is a bit overly optimistic. When you have > 100 students in almost every upper division class, it is exceedingly difficult to build a relationship with professors where you may find a chance to gain some research experience. At least with my experience in the EE department, the number of professors who take undergraduate research students is countable on one hand and most of them refuse to accept anyone who is not a 3rd/4th year. I managed to claw my way into a few labs (not EE or CS related) merely because they needed someone who could write code.
The US College ranking done at U.S. news is meant to consider undergraduate teaching, and in this aspect large public schools fall far behind. If you want to see the value of research taken into account, look no further than the graduate school rankings. I don't mean to imply that the rankings are accurate, just that there is a valid reason for excluding large public schools from the top of the college rankings.
- the_watcher 14y agoI also went to UCLA and second all of this. My undergraduate experience didn't feel at all like I was at a research university.
- jroesch 14y agoI am an undergraduate at UCSB and I have had a much different experience. For both my friends and I getting involved with research has been relatively easy, it just requires making the effort of interacting with the faculty outside of class, and pursuing research actively instead of waiting for it to fall into your lap. I think people forget that the faculty are often excited by having a very motivated undergraduate approach them, and show interest in the work they are doing. One of my friends started in his lab, as a second quarter Freshman, and most of my friends, including myself started second year(Note: I think this is really dependent on the kind of research, things like Data Mining have less barrier to entry then something that requires much more background like Abstract Interpretation).
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 14y agoI had a great research experience at UW in my Junior/Senior year. My work even made it into the New York Times (fuzz testing Java's bytecode verifier at the time to find security vulnerabilities). But it was something you definitely had to look for.