RIT vs SUNY Stony Brook Physics Programs

[FireHoose]

So I've gotten accepted to both RIT and SUNY Stonybrooks Physics programs. I am planning on attending Grad school for Physics after 4 years as well. I was curious as to which school has a better program or would be better for my undergrad? Or just any other input from you guys. Thank you in advance.

 

[LBloom]

I'm an SBU student myself, so I can speak for the program here. Let me put it like this, SBU has a great graduate physics program and brilliant physics faculty. A cursory glance at the RIT physics website seems to show that their program is smaller and their research isn't as wide. There seems to be a focus on optical and condensed matter physics. There doesn't seem to be anything in particle physics, nuclear physics, or theoretical physics. Plus there's always Brookhaven which Stony Brook runs. If you want to be exposed to more research areas, SBU would be better.

In terms of the actual undergraduate program, my best advice would be to contact the undergraduate advisors at each school and look up the curricula and what courses are regularly offered. You may also find physics is not for you and you should take this into account when comparing schools.

 

[Zweig]

Hello,

I'm not a student at any of them, but if you're interested in Astrophysics PhD (especially relativistic astrophysics), then RIT seems to be a good place.

Here the Astrophysics Science and Technology (AST) PhD courses listing : w w w.rit.edu/cos/astrophysics/courses.html

And here the Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation (CCRG)dedicated to research at the frontiers of numerical relativity and relativistic astrophysics, gravitational-wave physics, its connection to experiments and observations, and high-performance computation and scientific visualization : h t t p : / / ccrg.rit.edu/

Many of faculty members did their PhD at Top-ranked US universities in Astrophysics, so it seems to be a nice center of research !