Northeast
Studying science in college can mean cutting-edge research, and it can put you on the fast track to graduate school. But picking the right place takes more than donning a lab coat and goggles for the official tour. You'll want to ask about opportunities for undergraduate research—and figure out the often quirky culture of your fellow scientists.:
MIT
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it's all about the numbers. Most of the buildings on campus go by their numbers, not by their names, and students get numbers as well (a biology major anywhere else is a "course 7" at MIT). "It does take a while to get used to," says Alice Macdonald, a junior majoring in biological engineering. MIT students even have their own nonstandard unit of length, the smoot, lovingly employed every year to mark the length of the Harvard Bridge, which spans the Charles River linking Cambridge, Mass., to Boston. At MIT, it's just what people do. "I've kind of always been this nerdy kid in school," says Bryan Owens, a senior and a course 2 (mechanical engineering), who will return to MIT as a graduate student in the fall. "I could be nerdy here and still fit in with everyone else."
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Rensselaer Polytechnic
When Eben Bayer first saw the Voorhees Computer Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a feeling came over him that he had found the right school. Built as a chapel in 1933, the building served a brief stint as the campus library before computer labs settled in among the marble altars and stained-glass windows. "They've got all the computers in the church!" Bayer reflected to his mother as they left campus. Four years later, the senior with a dual major in mechanical engineering and product design and innovation still sees it as an apt metaphor for a technical school.
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Clarkson University
The journey north to Clarkson University involves winding, two-lane roads around or through Adirondack State Park and ends in the small town of Potsdam, N.Y., just 45 minutes from Canada. The entrance to the rural college is suitably woodsy. "A lot of times it's like a small high school in that you see the same people every day," says Kyle McNulty, a senior chemistry major.
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SUNY-Environmental Science & Forestry
The students at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry take great pride in being known as "stumpys." What exactly is a stumpy? "It's like you're an environmentalist and you like nature and a kind of tree-hugger type of mentality. We're not city slickers," says Ian Freeburg, a junior majoring in forest resources management. He's also president of the woodsmen team, 30 chainsaw-wielding men and women who take on other schools in wood-chopping and ax-throwing extravaganzas.
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