California Institute

California Institute of Technology School Images

California Institute of Technology Introduction 

Caltech’s scientific reputation ranks it among the world’s preeminent research universities, but with only 300 professorial faculty and 913 undergraduates, Caltech’s small size sets it apart from its peers. Caltech is the place where Linus Pauling determined the nature of the chemical bond, where Theodore Von Kármán developed the principles that made jet flight possible, where Charles Richter created a logarithmic scale for the magnitude of earthquakes, where Nobel Laureate in physics Richard Feynman— one of the most original thinkers of the twentieth century—spent the better part of his preeminent career, and where physicists and engineers are currently working toward the first detection of gravitational waves. However, Caltech is also a place where more than half of students participate in on-campus research before they graduate, where eighty-five percent of students participate in intramural or intercollegiate athletics, and where students have lived under a student-run honor system since the 1920s. The Caltech undergraduate experience is a fusion of two seemingly incompatible institutions: a multibillion-dollar research university and an intimate small-school community.
As a high-powered research institution, Caltech has produced some of the greatest scientific achievements of the past century. Caltech’s undergraduate program trains scientists and engineers for the great discoveries of the next. In class, you don’t just learn the answers to questions in your textbook; you learn to ask your own questions and are challenged to find the answers. Professors often treat students as intellectual peers, and while this creates a very demanding curriculum, it also gives students the opportunity to actively participate in cutting-edge research. Many undergraduates work as research assistants on campus, and more than 300 participate in the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships program each summer. Many of these students will be named as authors or coauthors of articles in major scientific journals, a rare honor for undergraduates. This unadulterated exposure to the real world of science means that Caltech graduates are well prepared for a career in research. A higher percentage of Caltech graduates go on to receive Ph.D.s than do graduates of any other university.
Although the science at Caltech is very serious, student life at Caltech is wellrounded and even a little quirky. Almost all students at Caltech are members of one of the seven houses on campus. The house, the modern-day remnants of long-lost fraternities, perpetuate a long list of offbeat traditions and are the center of year-round intramural sports competitions. The beautifully landscaped campus of lush, open lawns, cool ponds, and winding pathways fosters a relaxed Southern California lifestyle. On an average day, you might find professors and students sharing coffee at an outdoor table or students teaching More Ph.D.s than undergraduates— each other to juggle. At night, you might find a game of Ultimate Frisbee on the athletic fields or students grabbing a midnight snack at the student-run coffeehouse. There are more than eighty student clubs on campus, eighteen varsity sports, two jazz bands, a symphony orchestra, a concert band, numerous choral groups, and an active theater arts program. Caltech students work very hard on academics, but they’re also very good at finding diversions and, fortunately, there’s no shortage of activities from which to choose.
Most things at Caltech are not truly unique; there are many small schools where undergraduates live in an intimate environment, and there are many world-class research institutions where undergraduates have the opportunity to learn science and do research.
However, Caltech is the only place where these two ideas coexist on a single campus. They come to gether with great success, as Caltech consistently ranks among the top schools in the world. This makes the California Institute of Technology truly special and very difficult to describe on paper.
One big thing that nobody realizes until they step onto campus is how beautiful the landscape is. The student houses are flanked by brick pathways lined with orange trees on one side and olive trees on the other. Palm trees dot the campus and quiet ponds are home to lily pads, turtles, and bullfrogs. Every few weeks, a couple takes advantage of this scenery and gets married on campus; many more use Caltech as a backdrop for their wedding photos. This may have inspired the producers of The Wedding Planner to bring Jennifer Lopez on campus. Caltech students also recognize their campus in Legally Blonde, Orange County, and many other movies, as well as a host of TV shows including Numbers. Located a few miles from Hollywood, Caltech is a prime site for filming on location. The northern and western sides of campus are decorated with roses, which reveal another often forgotten aspect of Caltech: It is located in Pasadena, California, home of the Tournament of Roses. Each year, the Rose Parade marches within a few blocks of campus and all Caltech women are eligible to enter tryouts for Rose Queen.
This relatively small school is filled with surprises, and four years isn’t nearly enough time to uncover them all. Caltech is a small school where there is big science. Its students are high achievers, but forego competition for an Honor System. Its beautifully landscaped campus shares space with cutting-edge scientific facilities. It is a place where Nobel Prize winners are spotted wearing shorts and T-shirts. It has innumerable extracurricular activities. It employs more Ph.D.s than there are undergraduates. It requires its literature and economics majors to learn quantum physics. It provides a top-notch education and charges less tuition than most peers. Can all of that exist at one place? At Caltech, it has existed for more than 100 years.
Coming to Caltech is certainly not for everyone, but for those who truly love science, there is no better place. The Caltech undergraduate experience is a wild and amazing ride, and there is never a shortage of things to do. Four years at Caltech forever changes the way every student looks at himself or herself, and most graduates agree that it is one of the most exciting periods of their lives. The shared journey bonds students together, and many make friends that last a lifetime. For all graduates, it is an experience they will never forget—once a Techer, always a Techer.

California Institute of Technology Academics

The academic experience at Caltech is unlike that of any other university in the world. Every student has to learn the fundamentals of each major aspect of science while staying well rounded with a required number of humanities courses. Homework is done in collaborative groups and tests are almost all take-home. Participation in scientific research is easily accessible to every undergraduate and world-renowned faculty members interact with students on a daily basis. With big-time scientific research happening in an intimate small-school environment, the academic environment at Caltech is like no other.
When freshmen arrive at Caltech, they are all enrolled in math, physics, and chemistry courses. This is the beginning of the core curriculum, which is the heart of a Caltech education. Every undergraduate, whether majoring in biology, economics, literature, or chemical engineering, has to take five terms of physics, two terms of chemistry, one term of biology, two terms of introductory laboratory, two terms of science writing, twelve terms of humanities and social sciences, three terms of physical education, and one term of freshman “menu” course.

Options

At the end of the freshman year, students must declare an option, Caltech’s version of the major. There are options in every aspect of science and engineering, with the most popular being physics, engineering and applied science (which includes computer science), biology, chemistry, mechanical engineering, mathematics, and electrical engineering. A few students each year graduate with degrees in history, economics, or literature, but they are very different from their peers at other universities—through the core curriculum, all humanities and social science majors will have taken differential equations and quantum mechanics. Changing options is generally very easy, and double options are pursued by a few students each year. Every few years, a student designs his or her own curriculum and graduates under the Independent Studies Program.

Awards and Honors for Caltech Faculty and Alumni

• Nobel Prize: 31 recipients, 32 prizes
• Crafoord Prize: 5 recipients
• National Medal of Science: 49 recipients
• National Medal of Technology: 12 recipients
• California Scientist of the Year: 15 recipients
• Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences: 85 faculty
• Member, National Academy of Sciences: 75 faculty
• Member, National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine: 4 faculty
• Member, National Academy of Engineering: 30 faculty

Classes

The major distinguishing characteristic of academics at Caltech is that it’s very hard. Often unnoticed is the fact that Caltech students tend to take more classes than their peers at other universities. Caltech operates on a trimester system, with three terms a year that are each eleven weeks long. In addition, Caltech students take an average of five classes each term, while students at other universities generally take only four classes. After four years at Caltech, students almost always find themselves well ahead of their peers in the first year of graduate school.

The Honor System

The fast pace of Caltech is more than almost any student can handle on his or her own, but fortunately, nobody is expected to study without help. Collaboration with peers is strongly encouraged under Caltech’s more than eighty-year-old Honor Code. Instead of strict rules handed down from the administration, Caltech students are held responsible for their own actions and are on their honor not to cheat, plagiarize, or steal.
The greatest benefit of the Honor System is the fact that no tests are proctored. In fact, almost all quizzes, tests, and exams are take-home. The professor will set some ground rules for each test, and each student is responsible for respecting the given time limit and whether the test is open- or closed-book. Students are allowed to take tests wherever and whenever they want; some students sit in the privacy of their own rooms with their favorite CD or album playing, some prefer the quiet desks in the library, and some even take their tests out on the lawn or at the beach. Rather than having to wake up at 9:00 A.M., students can take their tests after dinner or even late at night; the professor won’t care as long as it is turned in by the stated deadline.
The Honor System also applies to homework, where students are generally free to share their answers with each other. As long as each student understands everything written on his or her own paper, the professor will give full credit. This atmosphere of collaboration virtually eliminates competition between students for grades. Every Caltech student is happy to help a friend with a lab or homework assignment because some day, he or she may need the favor returned.

Scientific Research

This training in the Honor System is part of Caltech’s strong focus toward scientific research. In the scientific community, researchers share their results openly and are held on their honor to conduct experiments with integrity. Undergraduates can experience this firsthand in numerous research opportunities on campus. The most popular way to do research at Caltech is through the SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships) program. SURF provides grants of over $5,000 to students who want to do research with a fac ulty member over the summer. Each “SURFer” must write his or her own proposal, submit progress reports through the summer, write a final paper, and present his or her research on SURF Seminar Day. Over the years, SURF has become an integral part of the Caltech experience. Last summer, more than thirty percent of the student body stayed on campus as part of the ten-week SURF program. In the most recent graduating class, more than seventy-four percent of students had spent at least one summer in the SURF program. Staying on campus over the summer is not the only way Caltech students can do research. The SURF program also pays for students to go to other universities over the summer—every year a few take this opportunity to travel to Europe. Caltech has insti tuted exchange programs with Cambridge University and the University of Copenhagen, which allow students to spend a term studying abroad. Students can stay on campus and receive hourly pay as research assistants during the school year or over the summer, and many labs are happy to hire undergraduates. Students can also earn academic credit by doing research as a senior thesis or to displace another requirement in their major. With so many laboratories at Caltech doing high-level research every day, the opportunities for undergraduates are seemingly limitless.

Laboratories

Some of the most advanced laboratories in the world are run by Caltech. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is the largest of these facilities. Located about fifteen minutes northwest of campus, JPL is NASA’s center for robotic exploration of the solar system. It has been run by Caltech since the 1930s and is the place where Voyager I and II, now heading toward the edge of our solar system, were designed and built. JPL also produced Galileo, which orbited Jupiter and its moons, and the highly successful Cassini, which is now orbiting Saturn, its rings and moons. JPL was also in the news for the multiple probes it has sent to Mars: Global Surveyor, the Pathfinder, Odyssey, and rovers Spirit and Opportunity. A van runs daily between Caltech campus and JPL, and many undergraduates make the trip throughout the summer.

Telescope Facilities

Caltech also operates several telescope facilities, including the Palomar Observatory north of San Diego housing the 200-inch Hale Telescope, and the Keck observatory on the summit of Hawaii’s dormant Mauna Kea volcano, home of the world’s largest optical and infrared telescopes. Caltech also operates the Owens Valley Radio Observatory, a collection of radio telescopes 250 miles north of campus. On the Caltech campus, there are 0.35-meter and 0.25- meter telescopes atop the Caltech astrophysics buildings that are used for undergraduate classes. Also, plans are underway at Caltech, in collaboration with the University of California, to design and build the Thirty-Meter Telescope, the worl’s most powerful telescope.

LIGO

In conjunction with MIT, Caltech operates the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), a facility dedicated to the detection of cosmic gravitational waves. LIGO is the largest project ever funded by the National Science Foundation, and consists of two widely separated installations within the United States—one in Hanford, Washington, and the other in Livingston, Louisiana. They are each massive L-shaped structures with four-kilometer-long arms held in a vacuum, the largest high vacuum ever constructed. A one percent-scale prototype sits on Caltech campus, and a few undergraduates work there every summer, experiencing the cutting edge of experimental physics.

Other Facilities

Caltech is also home to Nobel Laureate Ahmed Zewail’s Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, the headquarters of the Southern California Seismic Network, and a new initiative to improve voting technology. A new nanotechnology center and a state-of-the-art MRI facility are two more projects that are keeping Caltech at the forefront of scientific research. Caltech students have the unique privilege of learning in the midst of advanced scientific research. Many other universities perform high-level research, but nowhere else can students so easily walk into the laboratories. On a campus where the Ph.D.s outnumber the undergraduates, anyone who wants to participate in research needs only to ask. Research experience is the best possible training for those going to graduate school, and Caltech students have an easy time gaining that edge