ND Admissions LIVE: College of Science

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Are we on?

All right, welcome everybody.

We can give everybody a few minutes to to join us. My name is Dan guys alter I'm the associate Dean for undergraduate studies in the College of Science and welcome to the Class of 2026.

From South Bend IN where we are about to get more than a foot of snow tonight so I hope we actually have class tomorrow.

So the way this is going to work, I'm going to give a little bit of a presentation on some of the options and features at the College of Science. And then we're gonna bring back our panelists in a few minutes. And we're going to open it up to questions from from the admitted students and and the families and and. So let's get started. So let me first introduce our panel. That's so we got myself. Dan is also I'm the associate Dean for undergraduate studies.

Also professor of chemistry and I'm teaching right now physical chemistry class and I sometimes teach general chemistry. We have David Veselic who is the assistant Dean for undergraduate advising. He deals primarily with first year students.

And he's also in the Department of Biology.

We have three students joining us and and Jacob copy is a senior. He's a science business major with a real estate minor. Is that right?

Correct, Yep.

Right Genachowski is a junior, and she's a chemistry major, and she's taking a physical chemistry class right now. Very important.

And then we also have Rachel Ray Riggsbee as a senior physics in medicine major and she's also carrying a compassionate care and medicine minor.

Alright, so.

I'm gonna go through some of the highlights I think. Hope everybody can see the slideshow here. We're very proud of the education we we provide in the College of Science. What you're seeing here is actually a view of the the Observatory on on Jordan Hall looking towards the library. We have outstanding education. We have some of the best faculty in in the world.

We're very proud of how many of our students get engaged in scientific research. And then we're also having impressive career placement and.

Medical school admissions as well.

Alright, so just some highlights. Some recent things that are that students are very interested in the College of Science. We have a relatively new, not not new at this point, but a neuroscience very popular neuroscience and behavior major which is a collaboration between the biology department and the Psychology department.

We have the youngest of our departments. Is that applied math and statistics, applied computational math and statistics? I'll talk a little bit about the those majors in a in a minute. We have a fantastic scientific teaching facility in Jordan Hall of Science. If you get on campus and we hope you do, we'll have tours of that. It's it's a really just an amazing place to to learn and teach science. Some of the research things that we have available. We have some of the cutting edge research in the Harper Cancer Research Institute.

And there's a brand new research building called Mccourtney Hall which houses chemistry and chemical engineering, and we're just about to start construction on the second research building. That's like Mccourtney Hall, so all this adds up to some world class facility faculty and research facilities that are available.

Just to give you a taste, I'm going to go through very briefly some of the majors that we've got. There are 33 different major options in science, and they can be combined in all sorts of interesting ways.

Our faculty are leaders and and adopting new teaching and and evidence based teaching approaches. And we we often collaborate across departmental lines. A lot of the teaching and scientists in Jordan Hall. This is a picture down the main gallery in in Jordan Hall and is absolutely fantastic facility.

Anyway, I thought I'd talk a little bit about some of the majors that are available and this is just a small sampling, so I've put up here and I think this presentation will be available later. There's a website for each of the departments and programs in the College of Science, so there's the Department of Applied and Computational Math and statistics, which offers 2 majors.

The Biology Department offers a Biological Sciences major with eight different tracks and as well as an environmental sciences major. The Chemistry Department offers chemistry and biochemistry majors with some flavors as well.

The math department has has eight different concentrations in their math department and their math. Major physics has three concentrations as well as a physics and medicine major, and then neuroscience and behavior is one of our most popular majors right now, as is the science preprofessional, which is our Notre Dame's pre Med major. So those two majors make up. Actually, the majority of this college science majors right now. There are also a couple of majors housed in the college itself.

There's a collaboration between us and the Mendoza College of Business, so there's science business major. There's a science computing major for people interested in computer science and science education.

And you can ask us about those as we get.

We also have a number of minors available, so and these tend to be in centers, so we have the bowler, Percy and Center for rare and neglected diseases in that house is a new minor in science and patient advocacy. We have actuarial sciences in the math department and energy studies minor and a lot of our pre Med students have minors and compassionate care and medicine. And there's also a sustainability program that has a minor in sustainability.

Or we have amazing career placement. Our graduates are our go to some of the most prestigious graduate programs in the world. They are accepted into medical schools with an 85% percent success rate, which is just astonishing and they can go off and do anything. We we provide rigorous and and and excellent training and we are students go off into wonderful things when they're done here.

We do like the fact that almost 80% of our students get involved in research during their time at Notre Dame in any given year, we have 600 of our students are engaged in research. There's a summer undergraduate research fellowship cause surf, which is the the acronym for that, and students who do research can participate in undergraduate research symposia. There are two of those per year, and research can either be for credit during the academic year.

Where they can be paid lab positions, typically over the summer.

One of the biggest questions we typically get is is is what do I do? How do I get into Med school? There's a lot of students who want to get in Med school from Notre Dame and they do pretty well here, so this was the the last year I had data on was 2019. There were 257 applicants from Notre Dame and 215 of them were accepted and this is just a just a brief list of where some of them go. They're just top notch medical schools and we're really proud of our.

Our medical placements so as part of the College of Science, students have access to this Center for Health Sciences advising, which is run by Father Jim Foster and it is an amazing resource that helps students get into Med school and and get into great Med schools as well.

So students go on to Graduate School and go get get prestigious fellowships, so some of the most recent ones are here, including some Goldwater scholarships as well as. So we just found out that Andrew Burke, who had been a Goldwater winner and just wanna Churchill scholarship. So we're very proud of that. He gets a good Cambridge for a year, and then our students, who go under PhD programs go on to just absolutely fantastic placements.

So this was just a taste of what what's available and I if my panelists are still here, can they turn on their cameras and and come back 'cause I want to reintroduce them.

Please.

Right, there's David.

We're here.

And Jacob and Rachel, we're just waiting on Jenna to come back.

Alright, so at this point I think we we have a questions window up here and if David and I David Yonatan you want to add anything to this overview.

No, I think that is a pretty good overview. Uhm, I think now we'll just more or less open up to Q&A so.

If you want to post your question.

Right there.

And either myself or Dan or one is doing so will answer it.

OK, so here is the first question.

2.

It disappeared.

You you click that when you click on it.

Grill

Goes into chat right? OK, so the first question is it necessary to major in science preprofessional in order to get into Med school? I want to major in science business so why don't we ask Jacob who is a science business major?

Right up my alley for sure. So like Dan said, I am a science business major and I actually am planning to go to Med school. So I'm currently studying for the M cat right now. Working with the professional Center for Health Sciences. Working with Father Jim Dean Kohlberg and having an amazing experience trying to get ready for medical school and all that stuff that comes with it personally coming into.

My time here at Notre Dame. I didn't know if I wanted to go to medical school or not, so I picked science business because I thought I'd be a very well rounded major for myself. I'm giving me that science background that I needed to get into Med school. Take the M cat, but also giving me some business acumen that I could apply. Whether I go into private practice or if I chose a different career path. So with my well rounded science business major, I'm actually going to be working in New York next year during a gap year, doing a consulting work, and then hopefully matriculate ING.

In August 2023, so science business to summarize at best is basically the exact same as science preprofessional in terms of your science requirements, but then you get access to a bunch of business classes through the Mendoza College of Business that you wouldn't otherwise have access to. I think it's a great major. Like I said, well rounded, and I'm very thankful that I had the opportunity to to go down this path.

So I'm gonna I'm gonna pick questions a little bit out of order so that people so ask questions of all of our panelists there was. I just physics and medicine, Clifton.

I'm going to prove one from justice, so I'll get to all these questions. I hope so. I am planning major in physics with medicine. In what ways is it different from other physics majors? And do you feel prepared for the M cats? So Rachel.

Hi can I run hear me?

OK, so physics and medicine it has been an absolutely fantastic major for me. I could not feel more prepared for the impact. So as a physics and medicine major you're going to be taking a lot of physics classes with the rest of the physics majors. There's an entire physics track that's separate from the physics for engineers or for other life sciences majors, so you take all of those at like the basic level, and then you get to take upper level physics classes.

There are a couple classes you don't have to take. There's a modern physics lab that you don't have to take and you don't have to complete thermodynamics thankfully, but you get to take a lot more like life science based classes, so I've gotten to take several classes in psychology, biology, cell biology. I had a laugh with Doctor vessel experience Albio. I've gotten to take biochemistry. It's just a very well rounded major and because you have that physics background.

You get a lot of problem solving skills throughout your time here, and that really prepares you for the M cat in ways that other majors might not. So I'm also currently studying for the M Cat and planning to take a gap year and then matriculate in August or 23. So I feel good about my M cat just because I have a great major to give me like a knowledge base.

OK, then I'm going to pick another question from a little bit out of order just so I introduce everybody on the panel so so let's see. So how and when do you determine your track for Biological Sciences? So I'm going to hand this over to to David, who's who's in the biology department.

What was that quote about a track in biology?

Yeah, how, when and how do you determine your track with Biological Sciences?

OK, so in the bio major, if you go to the website there's a ton of detail but.

As part of the biology major, every major acid take a.

Required courses for the majors. So about 25 credits or so required biology courses and the rest of the credits are all biology electives, and so if you select your electives in a specific topical area, that's how you would declare track that typically doesn't happen till.

End of sophomore year.

And so it gives you the ability to have the broad background in biology, everything biology. But then if you really want to focus on computational biology or global health and infectious disease, you can pick one of those tracks and then take all your electives that fall under that track, and so that typically is.

End of sophomore year, where you start taking more biology electives where you would start discerning which track you'd want to take, and there are some courses that count for multiple tracks, so you could change your mind junior year even and go from.

You know biomedical science track to the medical neurobiology track?

Alright, I'm going to pick one for Jenna. So when did you guys declare your majors for your specific sciences? Did you come in with your majors already?

Can everyone hear me?

OK, Wonderful, so I came in as a chemistry major. My rationale behind that was that I liked it in high school, was unsure whether I wanted to pursue a pH D or an MD at the time of coming into college and just really loved the curriculum. Loved the major. I've really just absolutely fallen in love with all the opportunities I've gotten because of it, and so I stuck with it and I think I I believe I declared end.

Of my freshman year so.

Yes, end of my freshman year or beginning of my sophomore year. I can't quite recall, but that is not to say that you, I know, a lot of people who transferred into the chemistry or biochemistry major from other majors, and even other colleges. I have friends who started in College of engineering and have since switched over and it's absolutely doable and I feel like the faculty works with you really well to make that accommodation.

What about you Jacob and Rachel, when did? Did you know from before you got here what you wanted to do or was that? Was that a discovery and discernment process for you?

I kind of put my hand in the bucket and pick science business. Hoping to that would turn out for the best. Uh, not really knowing what I was getting myself into as it kind of played out over the course of the first couple years. It was exactly the track I wanted to go down so I got lucky in that regard. But knowing from others experience others experience you. Can you know, pick your major much later than when you're coming in. You don't have to have it figured out now and there's plenty of time and flexibility within most majors that you can.

You can jump around and discern while going through your classes and kind of follow your passion and your interests and eventually get to to where you need to be.

So I'm going off of that. I was fortunate enough to know my major before coming in and I stuck with physics and medicine, but one of my roommates she started as an applied computational math and statistics major, and then she switched to neuroscience, then switched to biology, then finally landed in science business and she didn't actually declare her major until the end of sophomore year. But she's already been accepted into several medical schools. And like, even if it takes you a long time to discern your major, that won't.

Necessarily impact your future or your ability to graduate on time, so yeah.

And and a lot of that exploration and not knowing what you're doing is fantastic. That's what college is for. You, not. You're not necessarily supposed to know what you want to do when you get here.

So there are a lot of questions about specific majors and I'm going to put back on the slide.

Pointers to the individual departments and programs, and I'm going to approve all of these in just mention them in passing that the best way to find out about like what classes are associated with actuarial scientists would be to actually go and visit the math. The math website, because that would have like sample curricula for that for that one. So there's a question here about what classes are associated with the actual sciences major. We don't have any actuarial sciences people here, so I'm just going to prove that one.

And the same thing about science education. There's a collegiate sequence, there's.

All of the collegiate sequence majors have a core set of science courses that you have to take the smallest of the science collegiate science majors is a science preprofessional. The science education ads, and in addition to that, a number of classes that are that are education specific, and you can go read about which specific courses and which ones are electives on the website. So I'm going to just point you there.

I approved that one OK, OK, so let's see. Let's talk how have any of the three of you done summer research? Well here Jenna OK, why don't you? So so can you talk more about summer research?

That was.

Absolutely. So I've been fortunate enough to be in a synthetic organic chemistry lab since my sophomore year here on campus, and I absolutely love it. It's one of my favorite things about being in the College of Science is how.

Much of your professors really encourage you to get involved with research, which can be really, really scary and really overwhelming to try to discern. You know which. Which labs am I interested in? So I had the opportunity to stay through the cause surf program this past summer and it was really wonderful. I was here for about 12 weeks and you get a stipend and you also get a allocation of money that goes towards like materials that you may need.

And.

So it was 12 weeks. I worked about 8 to 9 hours a day so it really it was a full time thing, but I was able to make a lot of progress with my research it was really great to just have a huge chunk of time with no classes and really just able to really dive into that and make progress on projects that it might be harder to do during the semester and during the academic year. So what came along with that program was so the applications for that were in the spring prior to that summer.

And then during the summer it was. It was fairly hands off. I'd say from the program you do some papers and thank you notes to contributors who are funding your ability to stay there. But this spring I will actually be.

Presenting the research I did over the summer in one of the symposiums, so it really I think I can't like recommend undergraduate research highly enough. It's been my favorite thing about the College of Science.

So there's there's actually a question here from Ben M. How early are undergraduates able to get involved in research? Is there a possibility to obtain a research position as early as freshman year? So I'm curious of the three of you when did you. When did you all? When did you start, Jacob?

Ah, I personally have not done any research, but I have worked in Doctor Veselic cell biology lab, so that's kind of the equivalent to research, and I picked that up during junior year. I'm sure there's ample opportunity on campus to get research before then, but at that point I didn't know if if I wanted to do research. If I was attempting to go to Med school so it wasn't top of mind for me, but in terms of being able to work in and Doctor Veselic lab.

It was as simple as I took his course, got a good grade, had a good time and then emailed him after the course was over and he said, sure, we'll have you on board and I've been doing that for the last three semesters and it's a great way to, you know. Stay involved, learn laboratory techniques, help up here. Students learn all about cell biology. So in terms of.

Being able to get access to research. Obviously having a connection with the professor is great, but I know a bunch of my peers and friends have just kind of cold called professors with emails and been able to get in their labs if they showed interest.

What about your agent review? Are you doing research or?

Yeah, I am currently doing some computational biology research, so I started that in the spring semester of my sophomore year, so I took a biology class, one of the introductory sequence classes and the professor knew that I was a physics and medicine major, and he had gotten his PhD in biophysics, so he asked me if I was interested in working on his project, and I was like, absolutely, I would love to.

Testing

So I have been able to learn how to code, which is something that I never got exposure to in high school, and I've never taken any sort of formal classes, but I've been able to work directly with my p and learn a lot, and we're actually in the process of submitting a paper for publication this semester. So very excited about that.

so I'll try to answer this generally, which is you can get involved. Probably it's early in the second semester re freshman year.

That's you don't have to. There's you can join research labs later, and in fact it may be better in some cases to to wait until you've had the relevant coursework. So just as an example, my own research is in physical chemistry, and sometimes I want students to have seen a fair amount of math and physics before they get to my lab. That which is OK. I mean, I I've had a K I've had a high school student in my lab before, but but.

So you can get started early, but but it you don't have to. There's nothing stopping you from from waiting until you're a junior to get started.

It's important that everybody we think it's important that everybody you know sees what it's like to think, like a scientist and and and and go to group meetings and present your work. Those are valuable skills, but you don't have to rush into it.

Alright, so we have a question about the difference between math and the College of Science and math and the art in arts and letters. So yes, you can major in math in either of the two colleges and the and the real difference is is how much other science you have to take. So if you're a math major in the College of Science, you still have to take two semesters chemistry and two semesters physics and a whole bunch of other science electives. If you're in the college works and letters, it's pretty much math.

And then a whole bunch of arts and letters requirements, so the two majors are are flavored a little differently, but you still see the same math courses in the same math faculty.

But the real differences are in the other the other courses.

Alright, does anyone do anything? You know? OK, can can you describe what makes the neuroscience and biology majors different?

OK David, you good for me.

So as as.

Dan mentioned earlier the neuroscience major.

Evolved from taking some of the biology major and kind of blending it with the psychology major.

And so you have biology and psychology coming together there, whereas if you're just a biology major.

You don't have any psychology.

Requirements so there is some overlap, you know, in terms of the.

Biology side, but if your bio major you have to take considerable amount more biology credits to finish the major. Whereas if you're a neuroscience and behavior major you don't have the same biology requirements, you still get a good solid foundation, but you also have to take.

You know a number of credits out of the psychology department to fulfill the major.

I think that would be the main difference.

OK, so we have a really good question here that I'm going to send to Jacob, which is can I do the minaring compassionate care in medicine with science business or only professional?

At one point I thought about adding the minor and compassionate care in medicine at Notre Dame. You have so much flexibility, especially in the College of Science, to kind of pursue whatever you want. So for me it was real estate. I kind of got into a couple of my business classes, thought the real estate aspect of it was interesting and pursued that I've had plenty of space in my schedule to do that. So while real estate proved to be, you know, the track that I wanted to go down with the extra space in my schedule to be my minor.

I definitely think that you can get a compassionate care in medicine minor with being a science business major it it should be no problem as most miners are the same amount of credit hours. And like I said, I've been able to to fit mine in quite easily.

Great, so the the answer is you can be in that minor from any major in any college. So not just our not just college science, college arts and letters, you can do compassion, care, medicine, engineering. I don't think we have any architects doing it, but you could so.

Adrian is asking something for Rich Rachel. What are the research specializations of Notre Dame Physics department? You're doing physics and medicine, but what else has your department good at?

The Physics Department does a lot of nuclear physics research and a lot of astrophysics research. We have the digital visualization theater over in Jordan and a lot of astrophysics research has gone into that. Our physics building Newland Hall of Science. It has like a telescope on top for Astro Research, so there's a lot of Astro, a lot of nuclear. We have a couple of accelerators.

Over Newland, I'm not sure about any other concentrations because all of my friends have done research in those two areas and most of my professors have come from those two areas. We might have some condensed matter physics research going on, but I'm not quite sure Doctor Giselle turdy know more about that.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, condensed matter had a bunch of retiree retirements like two years ago but they just fired a really like amazing condensed matter person from from ETA in in in Switzerland. Who's going to? Who's been? Who's going to hire like four more condensed matter physics people so that group is going to be really exciting going forward. It's going to be really interesting place to be.

So they are currently renovating the floor above me for for condensed matter physics.

Alright, so Ryan is asking about the do I have to be have been accepted into Mendoza to pursue a science business major so I'm not going to punt this to Jacob because.

There are 90 'cause I I know the answer. You don't have to be accepted in Mendoza, but we have a limit of 90 seats in that major per year. So if you're interested in doing pursuing that major, you have to make sure that we know about that early on and then otherwise you get on a wait list. So so luckily in the past two years we've been able to put everybody from those classes directly into the major without.

Going on the waiting list, but that hasn't isn't always the case, so I'm gonna just approve that.

Alright David, did you? Do you get much help selecting your freshman classes?

Yes, so once you're accepted and.

It will start kind of early in the summer.

Late spring early summer, like may end of May, June, you'll have outreach from your first year advisor, so every first year student coming into Notre Dame has a first year advisor to help navigate that first year and that starts with course selection.

Over the summer and building out your schedules and they will also help you so you continue on into the spring semester of your first year.

And then as you go through the spring semester of your first year, when you declare your major typically, then you would be handed off to your major advisor, and each major does a little bit differently. But most major advisors will be your major advisor, sophomore, junior, and senior year. There are some majors that do it a little differently, but you do get plenty of help and support.

Navigating the the first year courses for sure.

We have a question about dual degree programs here.

So how feasible is it to do a dual degree with the College of Science and Engineering?

It is doable. Those are typically five year programs which require the completion of all requirements of both colleges and have a minimum of 158 or 159 credits depending on the college. So it is doable. We have dual degree programs with arts and letters with engineering and with Mendoza College of Business. It's different from science business, but those are are quite intense and not very many students.

Is that mainly because it's a five year? They typically are five year commitments yet.

Yeah.

Can I just add something to that? One of my good friends in the physics major decided his sophomore year to add a dual degree with computer science, so I know you're looking at math and computer science, but physics and compsci would be very similar and his experience has been definitely very challenging because he chose to do it in four years. So he has had to overload his schedule every semester.

It probably would have been much more manageable to do it in five years, but it is possible to do it in four years. I don't know how much I would recommend trying to do that, but it is possible.

Yeah, we do not recommend trying to do it in four years 'cause mainly because overloads can be really challenging so so we.

You know there's if you have to overload the six courses, then that's.

Yeah, you gotta be prepared to not be doing much sleeping so so so they they usually are five year per it can be done before, but it's usually a five year permit.

Let's see.

So does anyone want to talk about how different you know any actual biology majors here? But David's here. So thinking about how Biological Sciences on the biomedical track? How does that differ from the Health Sciences? Or the science preprofessional major? The student grace is goal is to go to medical school.

OK, good question. Well someday I want to dress broadly, and then I'll answer that question is.

In terms of medical school.

You know Father Foster, who does an excellent job, has told me every major at Notre Dame has gone to medical school.

Besides, maybe I think architecture.

So no matter what your major is, if you stay in the College of Science or if you find another major that fit to as long as you plan your schedule, you can go to medical school in terms of difference between biology and science. Preprofessional science preprofessional.

Uhm?

Requires about 3 less courses overall, so it's not as many credits, and the science preprofessional major gives you more room for science electives, whereas if you're a biology major, you get more required courses for the major. But both of them are excellent. Both of them will set you up and prepare you well for medical school.

So we are gonna go for it.

I can only speak from the chemistry perspective, but I thought it would be really interesting to add is that I'm a chemistry premed student and it's not entirely common, but I found that it's been completely doable to Add all of the biological classes that all need for the M cat and for applying to Med school. It's very doable, it is extra that is not built into my major, but I had no issue doing it so I wouldn't let.

Wanting to apply to Med school limit what major you want to pursue.

So we have a whole bunch of questions here about study abroad and internships and whether or not it's possible to do study abroad and be a science major and go to Med school. All the all of those questions have any so so First off study abroad has been weird for the past couple of years because you know everything that's going on. So so I'm not sure any of you have any of you done study abroad.

No OK, because like we haven't had study abroad in general.

And the world is working as it should be. It is possible to study abroad and be a science major. Most students who study abroad do so in their junior year.

There are some challenges if you wanna do your M cats. Also in your junior year. So the typical route is for students who are interested in going to Med school to do their study abroad in the fall semester of their junior year to leave this spring semester open for M Cat Prep. And you know picking up that that you know biochemistry course or the mobio course that you think is going to going to help with the M cat.

Going abroad when you're a biochem major.

And prepare and going to Med school is requires that you you go to one of only one of two study abroad programs because those are the ones where biochemistry is taught abroad. So those are Dublin and London. If you're not in that very narrow.

Group of people so Biochem. Plus going to medical without a gap year then, then the the the landscape is a little more open.

Assuming those study abroad programs are going so, so unfortunately the past two years have been really weird and we've had to cancel programs, and we've had to. Yeah, there's been a long waiting list for this period. We hope that things are going to normalize starting.

Like this semester and that going forward, lots of students who want to go abroad will be able to.

Yeah.

And I just want to add if study abroad during the academic year doesn't work your fall or spring of junior year. We do have summer options.

In a variety of offerings, summer three weeks, summer, six weeks. I think summer 8 weeks.

To a variety of locations. So if you do want that study abroad experience.

But doesn't fit for your major or your extracurriculars or whatever is going on. You can go to a variety of places over the summer. Most of the programs over the summer you would be taking university requirements. You know, philosophy theology.

Literature there are couple.

I think London offers science courses over the summer, but you can solve that experience if it doesn't workout for during the fall or spring of junior year.

So there's an interesting question here. Is it possible to double major in the sciences and still graduate in four years? And the answer is yes. I'm going to put back up one of the slides here. Some of our majors have what are called supplemental versions. So so ACMS applied in math and statistics both have supplemental majors. Which mean means that they're meant to be coupled with another major.

Usually in the often in the College of Science there are some combinations which are disallowed, so you can't do biochemistry with chemistry because you know.

Like like 90% of that's the same, and so science preprofessional usually doesn't combine with any other majors.

But in there there are common combinations to environmental sciences with other ones, and and ACMS is a very common combination major with other majors in the College of Science to do 2 that are very dissimilar.

Physics and you know.

I don't know.

Environmental sciences that would be that could be challenged. Those aren't that dissimilar, but you know to do something that have very little course overlap would would be quite challenging.

Yeah, you can definitely do it. It just would take careful planning in terms of your scheduling.

Right?

Alright, are any of you three in Glen?

OK, so we don't have anybody who can answer the Glenn.

The class is an experience at college. Science differ when you're in the Glenn Family honors program. The answer is is a little bit, but not in the science courses. They tend to take different arts and arts and letters courses if they tend to be in the same majors. Courses with our majors and then take a different set of arts and letters courses.

Let's see, right. Was it hard to get the classes you needed? All three of you?

Not really.

Occasionally, like you would, you would get a bad time to pick your classes and you might not get one at the exact time or the semester you wanted it, but the the pressure over four years to hit all your requirements is it's pretty easy.

Yeah, I'm in a smaller major so a lot of the classes that I've had to take have like definitely enough seats like there's no way that I would not be able to get into a physics class. My only problems getting certain classes have been for the university requirements, so I'm a senior and this is my last semester here and I actually had to get my advisor to kind of like go to bat for me to try to get me into my second philosophy requirements.

Way I could graduate on time, but your advisor will do it if you can't get a class to graduate on time, your advisor will find a way to make it happen and find that seat for you so.

I've had a similar experience to Rachel, so chemistry I believe there's.

12 or 13 of us in the major. Currently in my year, and so there's been absolutely no issue getting those major specific classes. It's mainly if there is an issue. It's the core requirements.

If you get to be a graduating senior and you're missing a requirement, often your associate Dean steps in and helps you get the glass, but any of the three of you are in that.

Situation there are some really interesting question about industry connections and internships and interest in physics and DOE labs. Interestingly enough, Notre Dame actually has a Department of Energy Lab on campus. It's called the Notre Dame Radiation Lab, and it is the smallest of the DoD labs.

But we also have a lot of partnerships with Argonne National Labs and.

People go to Brookhaven and and but our guns really close so so people in physics I think can go do experiments in pretty interesting facilities if they're in the right subfield. Rachel is that.

Have you?

Yeah, that's been my experience. I think some people also do work over with Fermi lab and I personally am from Tennessee, so I've been able to make some connections through Oak Ridge National Labs and other DoD lab. But yeah, it's basically like if you want to work with the DoD lab in physics, someone in the physics department knows someone somewhere and can help you figure it out, like how to do it and get that connection.

So we are coming up on our time limit here. I think we were.

We were we were up until 7:45. There are a number of fantastic questions I'm going to keep going for a little bit, but if any, if our three students have to go that we will understand that they have busy lives and homework for their physical chemistry class, right?

So what?

Let's keep you out here. So what proportion of science students are applying to medical school? Is that the majority of the college?

It's closed, it's about 40%, so it's it's a big. It's a giant fraction of some, but it's not that it's not the majority. It's very not not the majority.

Uhm?

Write AP courses. Did any of you guys come in with AP?

Alright, how did that work in the College of Science?

You know, remember?

Doesn't doesn't really work.

AP Courses in terms of like the College of Science I came in with AP Bio and AP Environmental Science and a couple things like that and it gives you credit hours towards your degree but it doesn't test you out of any of the the intro classes. So even though you may have gotten A5 on AP Bio, you're still going to have to take bio one and bio two. It's just a requirement of any of the majors in the College of Science. It gives you good foundational knowledge that you need throughout your four years.

People wanna hear at Notre Dame. We wanna make sure we do it right so you're taking those courses. Whether you did well in AP Bio in high school or not or whatever other course, whether it be chemistry, you know and on.

So, so let me let me amend that, that that you you can't take AP credit in your major. So so if you're a chemistry major, you can't take AP chemistry credit if you're a physics major, you can't take AP physics mainly because the major courses in those fields are really intense and we expect you to.

We expect all the students starting in those cars just to have lots of stuff thrown at them.

So David, do you want to do? You want to clarify that? I mean, you can AP place out of your calculus requirement, certainly.

Yeah, I mean I think with Jacob said I mean broadly for most of the majors AP credit.

Is usually not going to satisfy one of your major requirements.

AP Calc is probably the the one that most majors will take and let you come.

Fulfill those requirements with AP, but as you said, if you have AP bio, you have to take intro bio etc.

And you can't use AP credit for university requirements as well, so you'll get credit. They'll just follow like general electives.

But

They graduate, they can help you graduate faster. I mean it it the credit limits.

right it gives you a little bit more flexibility, but in terms of knocking off specific major requirements that usually not the case.

So the same as someone has a question about IB classes. There is an IB test that follows similar guidelines to the AP tests. There's there's on thefirstyear.nd.edu website. There's a whole list of what scores give you credit for what.

So so I IB IB test can can be counted.

Is there a limit to students per year in the biochemistry major where the science professional major? Can you switch back and forth without major difficulties? So no, there are the only one of these majors which has a limit is science business, and that's because it's cooperative with Mendoza. The others are. We will take all comers.

Anybody who wants to be in those majors, can you switch back and forth? If any of you a couple of you were any of you, switch, no, you all came in knowing perfectly from birth what you were going to do right now.

So you can switch the later. It goes in your career, the harder it is to switch, because there's more courses that you might have to complete.

Yeah.

Is that fair assessment? David and Jacob?

Alright.

We talked about.

There seems, oh sorry.

Good.

There seems to be a handful of questions about second majors or minors. If you are a science major.

And as you can see from our students here and what they said.

Being able to pick up a minor or a second major as a College of science major is definitely doable. You definitely have.

Room in your schedule to do it, depending on what you pick. Once again, it's just planning out the courses and mapping it out, but I know there was a question about neuroscience and maybe FTT you can definitely accomplish combinations like that.

So yeah, there's a. Is there a seat limit for chemistry business that's part of the science business 90 that those are counted together? So we do those all at the same time.

How many students enter as premed and how many actually apply? That's hard to know because a lot of students come in knowing that they want to do biology, but intend to go to Med school so so the typical number of applications per year is about 250 to 270. Somewhere in that range.

And of the College of Science I, you know, I I don't know how many of them came in intending to go to Med school, but a lot of them did so, so we typically. I mean, that's a that's a big chunk of our majors tend to go.

If he could chime in and Rachel and Jenna, I don't know if it's this is the same for you guys. I would say about half of my friends and half the people I know that were intending to go to Med school and they came in or continuing to apply and the other half of kind of found different paths doing different things.

I'd agree with that, yeah.

Yeah, that's when my friends experience as well.

OK, are there any internships available for the summer before fall matriculation for freshman?

Uhm?

Not specifically in the College of Science there are.

There are some summer you know. Welcome to college programs did. Did any of you guys do any pre college things right before crashing? OK so.

So that that's not a particularly common thing, we there are a few programs that have summer bridge programs. Balfour scholars have summer summer programs where they come in for a couple of weeks and and take some classes and and get to know the campus. Some of the athletics program bring students in early, but in general, enjoy your summer.

Hang out by the pool lifeguard.

We're going bike shop, whatever. Whatever summer job you have is great.

And then come here rested and and ready to to start in on classes.

Is there a major that would fit? Can't assume you mean Cancer Research the best.

Maybe you guys want to handle that.

I think it depends like in what capacity you want to go into Cancer Research. I have a very good friend who's a senior biochemistry major and she works in the Harper Cancer Institute and she's absolutely loved her time there. In her research there, there's also a lot of.

Research that.

Contributes to Cancer Research, maybe not as directly. For example, one of the projects I'm actually on is designing a small molecular scaffold which will be used for Hedgehog signaling, which is implicated in many types of cancer, so there's a lot of different like ways to define Cancer Research, and I think many different majors and disciplines have ways to accomplish that.

And so there's an interesting question. How is research completed in an interdisciplinary manner? What programs help utilize this?

So you can do research here in any of the departments from any of the majors. It is possible for for a chemistry major to do research in biology and vice versa.

Research is typically a class during the academic year, you find a professor, and often faculty are are at boundaries, so there are very few of us who work specifically in one area. We we're typically on the boundaries of of of other fields, right? So my own research is on the boundary of chemistry, physics and computer science, and so I would take students from any of those majors in my lab if they, if they want to come.

So that's pretty much how we do it. We we take take students from everywhere.

Right and we have students signed students who do research in engineering and arts and letters and architecture. So you're not limited to the College of Science. There's other.

Overlap and other other majors and other departments as well.

Hey did any of you guys take major courses in your first year?

Jenna

Yeah, I took major chemistry and.

Yeah, I those classes were very challenging, but they really give you a great foundation going forward in the major. I would also just say that I came from a very small high school that did not offer an AP chemistry.

But talking to my peers who did take it for the majors courses, it's actually probably a good thing that they don't allow you to test out of it, because I don't really know how much it would help anyway, but I very much enjoyed by majors chemistry courses, but just know that they are. They are very challenging, but they set you up for success later.

During your time I know her name.

So how is it different from the big from the big intro classes?

So what I noticed was.

The classes were a lot faster paced in my opinion than some of the other like intro physics and intro bio that I took at least just in my opinion. I felt like we went pretty deep into some topics that I was not expecting to go so deeply into in Gen Chem. One specifically, I'm thinking we talked a lot about X ray crystallography and we talked about linked equilibrium and things like that that aren't.

Exactly found in every Gen Chem class, so I think it's it was a really great experience to kind of get a flavor for upper level chemistry, but also like learn what you need to as a first year.

I got your ratio. You took a physics for majors class.

Yeah, so with the physics for majors classes, your fall semester, you'll take physics A which is your introduction to classical mechanics. It's basically what you get exposure to in AP Physics one or AP Physics C and then your spring semester you will take a physics B which is intro to electricity and magnetism. And that's also something that you would see in AP physics two or AP.

Succeed and the classes are much smaller than the physics classes for life sciences, and they are also much more challenging. The exam averages were not high at first, that was a shock to me. That was my first time ever coming to a class and getting a 60 on an exam and learning to be happy with it. That doesn't happen in high school. You get a 60 and you fail.

But you start out like kind of not doing well in your majors classes. I don't know how it's been for Jacob and Jenna here, but I started out and I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm not smart enough to be here, but your professors want you to succeed. And when you're in those majors courses, they're smaller. So you get to know your professors very well. They will host extra office hours review sessions they will meet with you whenever you really need to, and they want to see you do well and they want to see you actually learn the material instead of just getting an A in the class.

Because you're naturally smart and I think that had I not started out getting 60s, I would not be doing as well as I am now in my classes and because the majors classes are a bit more difficult at the introductory level. When I got to advanced classical mechanics or advanced enm, I felt way more prepared and I was able to be very successful in those classes.

Alright, we we have almost no time left, but there's a question here about your toughest class. I actually want to ask you about your favorite weirdest, like unexpected class, what what? What surprised you? What class do you take that just like was the most surprisingly fun class?

And it doesn't have to be in science, I'm just curious.

Jacob.

Or Jacob.

Through my real estate minor, I took a class called U.S. housing and Social Justice, so it's actually a a winter semester class. Our schedules are our yearly calendar schedule. Kind of got changed with COVID, so we had the opportunity to take a class over Christmas break going from 2020 to 2021 and I took.

U.S. housing and social justice and and it was a phenomenal class looking at like segregation in America and a variety of factors that influence the the country today and then how cities are built and planning it. It was very different than anything I'd taken in the College of Science. It had a social aspect to it that I thought was was very intriguing and I definitely learned a lot in that class, which is great.

Maturation.

So my junior year, I was struggling to find a class that would fit my university history requirement. I had a really bad registration time and I just clicked whatever class would fit the requirement. So I ended up in a Native American studies class and it has by far been my favorite course here at Notre Dame. My professor was fantastic. I learned so much about the Native American history and the local South Bend area and I also got to learn about Native American history like throughout America.

From the era of colonization through modern day and we talked about, you know a lot of the current topics of is this mascot racist? Like how would the Seminoles mascot be worse than the Fighting Irish mascot? We just. We really made a lot of large connections that you don't really get the opportunity to do in science classes because it feels like in science classes it's building on top of everything else, whereas in that class we were just looking at from point A to point B. So that was an interesting thought process for me and.

I'm actually currently working on a social service grant proposal for the local like Native American tribe, so that will help pregnant like poking women. So I'm very excited about that and I would not have found that had I not ended up in just this random class so.

Jenna

So my favorite class letter name has been my major second or go class, which was also one of the hardest classes I've taken at Notre Dame, but I found it actually brought a large element of creativity to science in my opinion. I really, really liked it, and that's why I decided to go into organic chemistry research, so that's been my favorite.

Fantastic answers, all of you. We are at time and because there's an engineering session starting just now, I I think we're going to end it. David, did you want to?

Sure.

How's it doesn't tell the audience if they have questions, feel free to reach out to us via email or know myself or Dan or just students would welcome any questions we didn't get to tonight.

Right, yeah, there are a whole bunch of questions we didn't get to it. I'm sorry we didn't get to him.

Here I can put my email.

We will. We will end. We will close this out and and thank you for attending and we hope you to see you on campus sometime soon.

Thank you everyone.

Thank you.