This question comes up a lot, and I never heard a satisfactory answer. How does one measure "quality" of education?
For example, do top private schools like Harvard, MIT or Princeton, provide better quality of education than state schools, like Berkeley, UCLA, Penn State or Michigan, and what about small liberal arts colleges - like Swarthmore or Amherst?
Since this is a physics blog, let's limit it to physics education. Say your kid is a physics nerd and wants to become a physicist, go to grad school etc. Which option would you advise?
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
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By far the most important element of choosing an undergraduate institution is whether or not it attracts other students with the same goals and abilities.
Since there isn't a huge market or tradition for physics undergraduate (or master's) degrees, we should keep in mind that the ultimate goal is to thrive at a good physics graduate school. And you can probably construct some measure of graduate school goodness based on its ability to place its graduates at faculty positions in Ph.D.-granting institutions. Although its an open question whether the brightest students would thrive anywhere or whether they do well because they are at good institutions, certainly the resources to thrive--RA funding, access to equipment--are better at those schools that are generally ranked in the top twenty. And I wouldn't underestimate the value of spending five or six years absorbing an atmosphere of excellence, of being around other smart and motivated physicists.
So the goal for the aspiring physics student choosing an undergraduate college is to pick somewhere that will prepare him or her for work at one of the top twenty schools for graduate work. If there are other bright and motivated students, the department can offer classes at the right level. This won't happen at second-tier public or third-tier private colleges.
My graduate institution, usually ranked in the top ten by various measures, was a little more accepting of applicants from lower-tier undergraduate schools. The results, however, were not encouraging; most dropped out.
So, does it matter between top-tier public, or SLAC, or private universities? I don't think there is anything to generalize here, except whether the individual student feels that s/he fits in.
I don't think there is any real difference in the goodness of education at top-notch public (say, 10 or so), top-notch private uni (say, 10 or so), and top-notch private SLAC (top 5), with the exception that the research experience at the SLACs will not be on "world-class" experiments, unless they do REUs.
I think the quality of physics education can be similar at lesser schools, but it requires much more devotion on the part of the student to look out for their own interests and seek out high-level stimulation. At high-level schools you're by *default* challenged and surrounded by the best, which raises your own level; in a sense you can be a little lazy and assume things are at the level they need to be. At lesser schools you need to be more proactive; if you accept the default you'll end up screwed.
Hm, though, it definitely is possible to "slip through the cracks" at even a Berkeley in ways that you wouldn't at a good SLAC or top private.
So, overall, if you're worried about the quality of physics education, you're obviously focused on your own improvement, so you'll be fine wherever you go. But it's almost always harmful to be a big fish in a Directional State or Tiny Jesus College pond.
Well, maybe someone interested in this type of metric (hint, hint) could look at the CVs of all Nobel prize winners and/or physicists members of the National Academy of Science and see where they got their undergraduate degree ?
Massimo - this is PRECISELY what I thought about doing - what sometimes surprises me is that we scientists are all about hard data and numbers, but addressing these non-physics questions with hard data and numbers often gets the reaction along the lines of "nerds - those numbers don't prove ANYTHING - get a life".
So at the very least we need to agree on the metric ahead of time.
Nobel prize winners are too few and they are too old. Maybe faculty would be a good way to increase statistics, but some people will always argue that faculty is not a way to measure success. It might be interesting to cross-correlate GRE scores, qualifer passing scores (any other graduate-level performance metrics?) with undergraduate grades and other indicators.
As someone with an undergrad physics degree from MIT, you can guess what my answer would be. MIT physics kicked my and my classmates asses - I got B's, a few C's, and a few A's, but I finished each class with a vastly improved understanding of physics in every case. And this wasn't an understanding that sunk in right away - it took me halfway through Quantum 2 before I could appreciate what I learned in Quantum 1.
On paper, MIT could certainly have the "best" physics department in the country - number of Nobel Prize winners and all that jazz. And hey, Frank Wilczek taught my freshman mechanics class just a couple years before he won the Prize, so we actually did get access to the Nobels. That said, it wasn't the number of Nobel winners that made it a great place to be a student.
What really helped there was the environment. The overall attitude of MIT meant that the class A geeks - who worked hard, got visibly excited when they cracked tough questions, and bounced ideas to each other while just hanging around - were people to admire in that community. The peer environment was motivated but never once cutthroat or competitive, and the atmosphere was intense but invigorating. And beyond the physics itself, the work and time management habits it taught me were invaluable when I got to graduate school. Among my academic friends right now, my MIT undergrad pals are the only ones who say – unanimously - that grad school is easier, or at least no harder, than undergrad, (and they are nearing completion of their PhDs in some top-tier grad programs). It's not because they're supernaturally smart or anything; they just showed up very well-prepared and adapted well to the challenges of balancing class, research, teaching etc.
No school is perfect, no one school is right for everyone, and I'm a few years out so I could well be tainted with a touch of nostalgia by now. But if someone is excited about physics as a long-term career, I'd recommend any school where they can come away with a really rigorous understanding of physics and experience an environment where they work hard, ENJOY working hard, and learn a lot with students that are as enthusiastic as them. In my experience, MIT is one place that fit the bill, and if Princeton or Swarthmore or XYZ State University does the same, it should go on the list as well.
E. - I am glad to read your post, because MIT would be definitely at the very top of my list. No disrespect to SLACS, but they probably wouldn't make top 40. The environment point is right on - students learn from their peers as much as they do from their teachers or their parents.
Classes taught brilliant research scientists-professors are way more valuable, in my opinion, than a professional teacher who doesn't do active cutting-edge research.
Orthogonality or anti-correlation between teaching and research is a myth, in my opinion. While some top researchers may be a bit eccentric and not very social, all it means is that students need to get to their level, as opposed to professors getting down to students level. Luckily, at places like MIT you have a lot of students pushing each other - and therefore helping each other.
And besides, let's face it - in current world, it's not all about books and lectures anymore. You need access not just to best researchers, but to cutting edge facilities and equipment. And in this category Georgia Tech and Texas A&M are way ahead of Williams, Swarthmore or Amherst. Unless, of course, Amherst students go to nearby UMass Amherst to use their facilities, sit at their seminars and talk to their professors.
addressing these non-physics questions with hard data and numbers often gets the reaction along the lines of "nerds - those numbers don't prove ANYTHING - get a life".
Of course. If you cannot measure it or quantify it, then any theory is as good as any other, everyone can keep spouting nonsense and ultimately it comes down to a shouting match ("it is like this because I SAY SO"). Many people are far more comfortable with that modus operandi than subjecting theories to actual data.
With regard to your question concerning the undergraduate source of PhDs these two links may be of help and interest.
http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/2e/e9/60.pdf
http://www.googlesyndicatedsearch.com/u/Reed?q=Undergraduate+source+of+PhD&x=9&y=11
"Classes taught brilliant research scientists-professors are way more valuable, in my opinion, than a professional teacher who doesn't do active cutting-edge research."
I completely agree. Even for future theorists, "professional teachers" are impossible to learn physics from, in my case largely because they have the same attitude as pure mathematicians: you ask about applications, and they give you some canned response that was barely realistic when they were an undergrad, or they give you no answer at all - or worse still they abuse that awful Feynman quote about "physics is like sex..."
I got my deepest understanding of things from professors that, objectively, couldn't teach from a book worth a damn. When the topic was relevant to their research though - one could actually see why physics is worth doing (hint: not because it's like sex.)
IP,
I see that my comment from another discussion that quality of teaching is often better in LAC's than in R1 has got you going.
Note, however, that I never said anything about quality of education, only about quality of teaching. I hope the difference did not escape you. Education is about learning which means much more than just teaching and includes environment, exposure to research, local and visiting scientists and much more.
The statement by William that I got my deepest understanding of things from professors that, objectively, couldn't teach from a book worth a damn, sums it up pretty nicely.
IP, there's a question I've been meaning to ask you this subject. I'm a grad student working at a school that probably wouldn't be anywhere near the "top 10" schools, but it works closely with a national lab, and all of my research is taking place there. I'm looking more for an industry or government position when I get out, though I would still consider an academic position.
I chose the school because I thought that the presence of the national lab, as well as its strengths in my field, would outweigh the lesser prestige of the school itself. Was I wrong to come to that conclusion?
But the point is do you truly believe 100% super-physics education is the right approach for "undergraduate" education, even for physics major. I personally think undergraduate education is the time to try out different things before you make big decision in life. Sure, he could love physics to his death now but would you bank that 4 years from now, he may not consider other options? Even if he wants to be a physicist, would not you want your kid to learn the other aspects of lives instead of exclusively focusing on one thing?
Also, some people just learn better by discussing with professors. On average, professors at the research-oriented universities/institute of technology-type (1) have less time (2) "too" focused in their research to teach undergraduate-level class (3) what if you like the physics branch that is not the strongest concentration in your school (does that mean all your Nobel-level professors in your school are useless because they cannot teach their other physics as well as their primary physics?) Or if you take it to the extreme, may be it's good you don't go to "traditionally good" schools in physics to allow you to perceive the world differently from other physics major peers.
You can guess by now. I am rooting for small SLAC type of education (or research universities with CLEAR emphasis on undergraduate training)
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