The University of Oregon

Date: Aug 07 2010
Major: Chemistry (This Major's Salary over time)
I came into U of O in 2004 undecided and decided to attempt a BS in Chemistry. The core courses (GChem, OChem, Phys, Bio) are pretty good, not incredibly rigorous, but all the lecturers I had were very knowledgable and covered everything very thoroughly. In my sophomore year I switched to Biochemistry as a major because I began to feel chemistry was a little dry. The biochem program needs some work. There were a few courses I had that where I had no idea how this would be useful for me in the future, specifically PChem. The thermo was interesting but StatMech and QuantumChem were boring and not very practical to anyone but pure chem majors.

There is also a dearth of bio in the biochem major as you cram general bio into two quarters, also topics like immunology and protein chemistry were quickly passed by us. You only get one term of biochem lab which teaches you some useful, but very basic molecular biology. Most of the interesting stuff, like PCR reactions, were handled by the TAs while the class was left to use second-hand spectrometers and centrifuges.

If you are looking for a rigorous, practical biochem program, I'd suggest you look into OSU, UW, WSU, or a UC. Besides that, I heard that the Bio and Chem programs, separately, were pretty good. So maybe a good strategy would be to take Bio and take the important biochem courses as electives.

Ignoring academics, U of O has a beautiful campus, a very friendly student body, a very active (although overly dramatic) student government, and the campus area is a fun place to live. Initially, the rain sucks if you're not used to it but it becomes usual after a few months. There are a lot of hot, although dumb, girls due to the business school. Greek life is a parody of itself and, thankfully, small. Dorms aren't that great but you'll meet a lot of great people. Hopefully you'll meet someone who has a car and can drive you to the coast or Portland on the weekends. Make sure to mingle with the hippies, they usually have some good parties and can hook you up with drugs.