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Caltech: Reaching For Galaxies
The California Institute of Technology (affectionately known as Caltech), is a private university that offers an intensive curriculum specializing in the natural sciences and engineering. Renown for their aeronautical advances in jet propulsion, Caltech, through its subsidiary Jet Propulsion Lab, works intimately with NASA. It is fair to character their relationship as such: when NASA wants to go to space, the JPL figures out how to get them there.
Caltech, despite is reputation, maintains a relatively small student body, with little more than two thousand students in both its graduate and undergraduate programs. From humble origins to world renown, Caltech began in 1891 as vocational school. It was not until the tenure of the astronomer George Hale that the university began to cultivate its reputation as a frontrunner in science and aeronautics. He convince other prominent scientists, among them physical chemist Arthur Amos Noyes and experimental physicist Robert Andrews Millikan (who would subsequently win the Nobel Prize for physics), to join the institution.
Arguably the most successful research institute on the west coast, as of 2008 Caltech claims thirty-one Nobel laureates as alumni or faculty. No more than 25,000 students have passed through its doors, which means the ratio of Nobel laureates to alumni is so small, no other university can compare. Other notable alumni who received Nobel prizes include Edward B. Lewis, Linus Pauling, Carl D. Anderson and William A. Fowler.
Although the emphasis is quality over quantity, various interdisciplinary programs have been started to give students a survey of inter-related fields of study. The academic workload at Caltech has been fairly distributed to ensure students are successful with their coursework. The grading system has been designed in such a manner as to allow students to know their academic standing as early in the semester as possible. This helps students put the necessary emphasis on their academic performance in subsequent exams.
As they both Caltech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) vie for government grants and international prestige, the two schools have developed an intense rivalry over the decades. As expected, this rivalry has vented itself by way of years and years of reciprocal pranks, which seem to invariably involve the respective school mascots. Regardless, these institutions are known worldwide as centers of exemplary academic research and supply the upper echelons of our scientific community.
About the Author Potential students are encouraged to contact Caltech for more information. The benefits, both tangible and ethereal, of obtaining a degree from Caltech are tremendous.
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