Some of the reasons why I write this blog is that I like to let the world know how awesome the University of Richmond is, I like to help in popularizing science especially in liberal arts colleges, and I like to help international students have an easier time in applying to colleges in the US. How cool is it when I get to do all those outside this blog, in the same time? One such opportunity was this Friday.
You probably heard that UR has a new incredible international center that they just finished constructing and is going through all the inauguration-related events possible. As part of this long series of events I lost track of, they invited 30 international high school counselors from all over the world to get to tour the University of Richmond, find out first-hand how amazing it is, and hopefully encourage their students to apply here. I was part of this effort; my role was to offer a student perspective of how it is to be an international student majoring in sciences at UR.
The professor I worked with over the summer was in charge of touring the chemistry facilities and talking about how chemistry classes are taught, research opportunities and so on. I and another international chemistry major joined him in talking about our experiences here.
A lab from the first floor where many chemistry research instruments are kept, and where prospective students always stare at students to see “science in the making”. (like this time at the beginning of this semester, when I was learning how to use the solvent column that you can barely see in the background, and I was very nervous about it, when 30-something people on a tour decided to look at me…too bad they can’t come now when I’m used to it so they see how fast a UR student conquers equipment!)
I never saw my summer research lab so full of people before!
One of the most interesting question that was asked by a high school counselor was how UR, being a liberal arts college, competes with big universities in attracting students who clearly know they want to do science as a career. They were lucky I was in there, because I was probably in the best position to answer that question. I chose UR over a US top-10 university that offered me a pretty similar financial package. The main reason? Precisely that UR was a liberal arts college and it has an amazing science program. I came in as a hard-core science student, but I knew that I didn’t want to work closely with a graduate student who struggles to get his own degree instead of helping me learn something, and not speaking too often to the professor in charge of the lab. I wanted to first be taught how to do research, before going to grad school. It’s not an easy job to look for a liberal arts college with a very good research-oriented science program. I don’t say that UR is the only one, but you have to look very hard, read websites very carefully, and visit campuses - particularly their science facilities, to be able to tell. You will probably have an easier job than I did in finding such a college, but I, living in an area where nobody has heard of applying to US colleges and usually figuring out all by myself, only found one such college: UR.
