Success for the sciences

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Zach Kohley ’06, recently accepted a joint faculty position in the Michigan State University chemistry department and national superconducting laboratory. He will be starting a research program studying nuclear chemistry and also advocates the value of an undergraduate degree in the sciences at Hillsdale.

Although Hillsdale College is not widely noted for its science program, many graduates — including Kohley — go on to pursue careers in that field after graduation.

“Hillsdale gave me some very important skills which I feel aren’t emphasized at big schools like scientific writing, and research in terms of reading and finding journals and understanding what it means. These things made a big difference in my career,” Kohley said.

Biology professor Francis Steiner also explained science majors have consistently had the highest graduate placement rate of any department at Hillsdale.

“We send over 50 percent of our graduates into graduate or professional schools. This is a good reflection of the kind of major and courses we’re offering,” Steiner said. “The feedback we get from the students who have gone on to graduate and professional schools is pretty much across the board: how well they are prepared versus their contemporaries, many of whom haven’t been exposed to the level of detail in material that our students have have.”

Kohley is only one of the numerous successful graduated Hillsdale students in the science field who shows Hillsdale provides students with a superior education.

“Years ago, we had a chemistry major who got a job at a local pharmaceutical company in Western Michigan. She was hired above people who had master degrees and other experience because she could actually read an NMR  spectrum. She learned to do that in her organic chemistry class here,” Steiner said. “She came back from the interview telling some of her professors she was amazed they [interviewers] were amazed she could actually interpret the data and had had experience doing that. That’s the advantage of coming to a small school. There is more personalized attention at both the classroom and research level.”

It is a common misconception that small liberal arts institutions do not prepare students in the sciences as well as larger schools.

Despite this, current Hillsdale science majors say they believe Hillsdale is a better choice than many larger schools for their undergraduate science majors.

“They [science students] should be concerned if they go to a big school because they won’t get the same experience. I would never choose a large school over Hillsdale for my pre-med experience. I would never go back,” junior Nicole Clark said.

Many students choose larger schools for the science because they assume Hillsdale and similar small schools don’t have the same laboratory and technology opportunities.

Senior Kurt Masciovecchio says theses assumptions are far from the truth.

“Just because we’re at a small school doesn’t mean we’re lacking in any of the technologies or facilities to be a successful science major here,” Masciovecchio said.

Chemistry professor Mark Nussbaum says Hillsdale can actually offer students more opportunities than some larger schools because the equipment here is specifically for undergraduate’s use.

“A student who comes here is going to be pleasantly surprised that there isn’t much they can do at a larger university that they can’t do here,” Nussbaum said. “If they go to a larger school, there is tons of wonderful equipment, but it’s primarily for the graduate students. The undergraduate students will see and maybe touch it a few times, but they won’t get as much experience as they will here.”

John Flo, a senior Chemistry student who transferred from University of Missouri after his freshman year, also agrees his small school experience at Hillsdale offers him technological opportunities Missouri could not.

“We have a real-time PCR machine and I was the first one to break it in. You don’t get that opportunity at a big school,” Flo said.

Beyond the technological advantages, Kohley said Hillsdale also positively impacted his career by teaching him to communicate well.

“One thing you don’t realize when you go to grad school is how much you have to write.  My career has been defined by what I can publish and what I can write.You won’t get articles published if you can’t write, and Hillsdale teaches you how to present your work. Those two things define your career as a young scientist,” Kohley said.

Many of the communication skills Kohley references are taught in Hillsdale’s core curriculum. While many prospective science majors don’t understand how the reading and writing classes are applicable to their field of study, students and professors value the core as integral to science majors

“I enjoyed it [core curriculum] because I feel in the sciences you need to understand the natural world around you and I understand science is only part of the Truth,” Hillsdale student John Flo said. “Sometimes when you’re in the lab, you lose sight of what the big picture is and the liberal arts education makes it all come full circle.”

Despite the emphasis on a high GPA for getting into graduate and medical school, Nussbaum wants science majors to understand the importance of the core, and he thinks more students will begin to tend towards liberal arts schools due to medical schools changing their application regulations.

“We try to make it clear to people this [core] isn’t a waste of time; it’s part of what we consider to be critical education. For students who are interested in medical school for example, they’ll see there’s a big overlap between what’s required and the core curriculum,” Nussbaum said. “That’s going to become even more the case in the future I think, as medical schools are adding to their lists of things a student has to have when they come in.  Medical schools are recognizing also that we need broadly educated people to be physicians.”

Although all Hillsdale students and faculty admit Hillsdale students are sometimes at a disadvantage in the short run when applying to medical schools due to the lower GPA its students often boast, this doesn’t prohibit them from accomplishing their goals in the long run.

“It adds a lot of stress knowing my GPA is lower. Other students will have 4.0s and still get turned down,” Clark said. “Knowing I’m going into it with a GPA that isn’t a 4.0 is hard, but what is important is that I know this material and I’m confident in my knowledge. Even though my GPA doesn’t always reflect what I feel I’ve learned, I feel the rest of my application will make up for it.”

Letters of recommendation from students’ undergraduate professors are critical to their applications. Flo shows Hillsdale offers advantages over large schools in this area as well, because its professors are able to give a more specific and accurate account of their students since they know them better than students who are only one of hundreds at a large institution.

“If you’re applying to graduate or medical school, everyone is qualified, so you have to prove you can work independently and hard,” Flo said. “You need people to reinforce that, because if that’s what you’re saying about yourself, it has to be reflected in your letters [of recommendation]. The professors here do a really good job of setting you up nicely.”

Regardless of the lacking GPAs, the numbers show Hillsdale students are still successful after their undergraduate education.

“In the last five years, 70 percent of our students got into med school on their first try and it’s 98 percent afterwards,” Hillsdale admissions counselor Zach Miller said. “Those are good numbers compared to national averages. Our placement rate is one of the top in the state.”

In addition, Nussbaum said contrary to popular belief, many students in the sciences have more success by acquiring their undergraduate degree at a liberal arts school.

“The percentage of students who get their PhD in the physical sciences who come from liberal arts schools compared to the percentage that come from large universities is disproportionately in favor of liberal arts colleges,” Nussbaum said.

Although Hillsdale science students are successful, Miller said many prospectives don’t choose Hillsdale if they’re interested in a science major because they aren’t aware of Hillsdale’s strengths outside the humanities.

“It [science program] is Hillsdale’s best-kept secret,” Miller said.