Features: Feb. 11, 2002

Accelerated Program Offers Access to Graduate-Level Research Ahead of Schedule

Having completed the requirements for a B.S. in biochemistry and biophysics a year ahead of schedule, as a junior, Sarah Hobart, got on the Ph.D. fast track two years early. She expects to graduate from Rensselaer with her Ph.D. in 2004—three years ahead of the typical schedule. She is one of a handful of students who participate in the accelerated Ph.D. program at Rensselaer.

Rensselaer has long offered accelerated degree programs resulting in M.D. and J.D. degrees (in conjunction with top-name schools such as Albany Medical College, Albany Law, Columbia Law School, the University of Pennsylvania, and others). Now, outstanding undergraduate students are being selected for highly specific, fast-track degree programs that allow them to earn simultaneous credits toward doctoral degrees. More importantly, they get to conduct graduate-level research.

As an undergrad in Wilfredo "Freddie" Colon's biochemistry lab, Hobart was doing research at the level of a third-year graduate student, according to Tom Apple, dean of graduate education.

"These undergraduate students, and we're finding more and more of them, are very eager to do research right off the bat," says Apple. "They are energetic, obviously thinking well past their age, and show an exuberance for laboratory work and high-level research."

Hobart, whose research centers around protein folding (particularly the folding mechanism of that protein), says the accelerated Ph.D. program allows her to publish at a higher rate and maintain her research productivity, which she says increases exponentially over time. Additionally, she has more access to funding and has free rein in Colon's lab.

"She'll finish her postdoc in the same time she would have completed a traditional Ph.D.," says Apple. "On this accelerated pace she'll be ready for prime time while she's still in her prime."