Anyone in U.Chicago Biosciences programs?

[clx]

I understand that it might differ greatly from cluster to cluster... but anyone that has any experiences here will be of great help. Are you or is someone you know in the Chicago Biosciences Division, any cluster? How happy are you/is he/she? Do people have good discussions? What kind of people do you think fits the place best?

I need as many input as possible, as I'm feeling pretty good towards the program, but then the more I think about it the more I realized that I still lack sufficient grad student input. Comments?

[wakuwaku]

Hey there, I'm currently an undergrad at the U of C. At the lab I work in, there are students from three different programs--Organismal Biology and Anatomy, Neurobiology, Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology. They treat the undergrads here like doo-doo, but from what I can tell, they take good care of their grad students and they all seem pretty happy; I'm definitely thinking of staying to do my PhD here. As far as discussion, there are always different kinds of talks to go to and I always see people talking about science, but it's also easy to talk to people about non-science things. One thing I really like about the biological sciences here is that it's really interdisciplinary; as you've probably heard, most faculty are in more than one department, so PIs tend to have pretty wide interests and are working on questions that involve all these different areas of science (e.g., my lab works on development, neurobiology, and evolution, and we also have a collaboration going on with a lab in chemistry).

I don't know where you're from, but you might also want to consider how you would feel about living in Chicago. Winters can be brutal--trying to walk on icy pavement + slush in -4

[clx]

I visited in January and felt okay, so I don't think it could get much worse. =) I was from the tropics though, and for some strange reason I'm not as addicted to sunshine as most people do. I certainly don't expect the restaurant scene to be as good as the (SF/Berkeley) Bay Area, but oh well.

Good to hear the grad students don't hate themselves. Undergrads everywhere are generally treated as "dishwasher unless proven otherwise", so bleh. Any other inputs out there?

[Michelley262003]

I got my rejection yesterday. Oh well. Chicago is a hell whole anyone.