Blending two colleges makes biology more popular

The four-year-old biology major, which blends the liberal arts with professional training, has become one of the most popular programs at UW–Madison.

About 700 students have enrolled in the program. The biology major is shared between the College of Letters and Science and the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

“The colleges have different cultures,” explains Tom Sharkey, one of the new major’s co-chairs and a botanist in L&S. “The biology major has a flavor of both.”

And rather than forcing students to pick a specialty from the start – all CALS freshmen must declare a major before their first semester – students can major in the broad field of biology, where the focus is on understanding the principles pertaining to all biological sciences. “Compared to many majors in CALS that have their eyes set on meeting professional criteria,” says co-chair Steve Ingham, a food scientist in CALS, “the biology major is more flexible.”

The major is broad, but, as Sharkey explains, that’s the point: “The purpose of the biology major is specifically not to have a focus.” In fact, the only track offered within the major is in neurobiology, which currently does not exist as a major.

“Students who declare biology have interests in the fundamentals of biology,” Sharkey says. By being exposed to more than 30 biological sciences offered on campus, students become biologists first, explains Sharkey, and then may choose to specialize in plants or bacteria, for example, in graduate school.

But students may also specialize while still undergraduates. “We set requirements so that students can switch to another major in the biological sciences and not be behind,” says Sharkey. Unlike all L&S majors, which require students to take fewer than 60 credits in their declared field, the biology major requires 61 credits. These credits come from courses in biological sciences, physics, and general and organic chemistry.

To help students navigate such breadth, the biology major student services coordinator, Madhu Verma, assigns students to advisers who can help identify long-term goals, narrow biological interests and connect students with other professors.

While those with interests are matched accordingly, others can be assigned to a professor in any biological science. Students also have access to peer advisers.

These options, admits Ingham, “give the major a little more of a liberal-arts character.” Yet many biology majors are professionally oriented. Surveys of 2001 biology major graduates show that about half of the respondents planned on attending a professional school (e.g., medical, optometry, chiropractic) and that about 20 percent would go on to graduate studies in fields as diverse as animal behavior, secondary science education and finance.