The California Institute of Technology

Date: Nov 03 2003
Major: Biology (This Major's Salary over time)
While many will say they had their love of math and/or physics and/or all of science "beaten" out of them (I've said the same and many would still claim I did…) I think that overall for me it was a good thing, given why we go to this school. People going here are (generally) planning on graduate school. (If you aren't I would advise against Caltech!)If you aren't willing to really work and put the time and effort to get through some of the upper-level classes in certain subjects (I wasn't), you'll generally find that you liked the subject because you were good at it, not because you wanted to do it for the rest of your life. Caltech forced me to find something I was willing to think about ALL THE TIME. Once I got there, I had challenging classes, interesting coursework, and a much better preparation for graduate school than many other people at colleges that emphasized memorization and busy work rather than understanding (the vast majority of my classes in my major were based around primary source literature and open book and essay tests). Now that I'm planning on going to graduate school (after working for a short time first, I actually just graduated), I find that Caltech really prepared me for exactly that. However, it doesn't prepare you for much else, and it's pretty hellish if you're trying to get a med school GPA or find that you like literature.