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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Plenty of people at
SLACs are STEM
majors. Swarthmore has an engineering program, and Amherst has a dual engineering program with Dartmouth. In other words, SLACs are not just for humanities.
[/quote]

Very, very few who are serious about a career in STEM would choose an LAC over, say, Georgia Tech. And they'd regret it immensely about 5 years post-grad and into their careers when they realize the head start that their peers at research unis and technical schools have over them.[/quote]

I have a bachelors degree in biochemistry and a PhD in chemistry.  My bachelors was at a LAC and my PhD was at a well regarded flagship state university.  I did my postdoc at Berkeley   I am currently a professor at a large state school, although I have friends who work in biotech, big chemical companies like Dow, pharma, government labs like the NIH, national labs and research institutes, in IP law, in public policy, and at a range of academic institutions from places like Stanford to liberal arts colleges to community colleges.  They went to a range of schools for undergrad.

I have zero regrets about my undergrad education.  I know plenty of people who went to state schools or elite technical schools like MIT/Caltech for undergrad, and there are many roads to Rome.  The advantage I had was really close relationships with faculty who were excellent teachers and mentors.  My junior/senior level coursework was in very high detail, taught essentially at the level I teach our first year graduate students and my freshman/sophomore coursework was taught on average at a higher degree of rigor than it is taught at my current institution.  Because there were no grad students, I had a lot of autonomy over my research directions (not being a pipette monkey for a postdoc), although there were some resource limitations and the pace of research was slower.  There are certainly pros to going to research universities in terms of the sheer number of opportunities available for motivated students.  But the pros to going to a SLAC are high as well, especially for a student interested in getting a PhD.  My friends who have gone on to teach at SLACS--especially the more highly ranked ones--are very smart, driven people who would have succeeded at a range of paths but felt like they wanted a career where they would work more closely with students in the classroom and in terms of mentorship.  I think a lot of people unfamiliar with LACs and higher education don't understand the depth of STEM curricula  at most of the more highly ranked LACs.

I don't think Georgia Tech would have been the right fit for me at the time as an undergrad, nor do I think I would have gotten a better education.  It would have been a different education with different pros and cons.[/quote]

My DC is a chemistry major / math minor at a LAC and wants a PhD in chemistry because she is interested in working in industry (drug development).  She is getting great research experience and has a wonderful mentor/advisor who knows her well.

No complaints here.[/quote]

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