DePaul University

Date: Dec 09 2009
Major: Physics (This Major's Salary over time)
DePaul is an underrated school that offers a challenging and self-rewarding educational experience in many areas. I chose DePaul because of it's prestigious business school and it's location in the heart of chicago. DePaul also has alot of opportunities to network and work at great companies in one of the best cities in the US. As an undergraduate I was able to explore many challenging classes in both the fields of physical sciences, mathematics, finance, and even philosophy/ethics; some of these classes varies from statistical mechanics, combinatorics, number theory along with computer science classes aswell. Eventhough most of the students at DePaul study humanities, there is still a fair amount of students who've decided to concentrate on fields such as Chemistry and Physics or in pre-med aswell; I was accepted primarily to the business school, but because of intrinsic reasons I decided to pursue Computational Physics, so far it has been just as challenging as studying physics at a big school with one great advantage, the teachers and faculty at the physics dept. have an open door policy where you can walk in and the professor will help you solve any problems you've encountered in either your homework or laboratory. At the moment, I dream of pursuing a PhD in Theoretical Physics and DePaul has been there to guide me throught the process. DePaul gave me the opportunity to learn from 'real professors' and not TAs since most public school teachers are mostly involved with research projects, which often outweighs the importance given to lectures (not applicable everywhere of course). The faculty at DePaul is excellent and focused on teaching, most professors have a PhD from schools such as UC-Berkeley, Northwestern, Notre Dame and Princeton. DePaul might not be the right choice for most, but if you are driven to learn and reach a balance between the business oriented reality we live in, and the creativity freedom of academia, DePaul might be a good fit. While some of the negative aspects of this school are fairly minimal, what has been said about the student body is very narrow, and it's usually based on freshmen (which in this case is very true - if you're looking for a vibrant greek life on campus, etc - don't come to DePaul). But if you're a bit more mature you will meet some great minds.