Plan of Study
EEB students are required to complete 8 departmental (5 of which must be EEB or MOL) courses. Only grades of C- or better are allowed for a course to count as departmental. Of the 8, and in the interest of gaining familiarity with the full range of whole-organism biology, EEB requires that all students take at least one course in each of these three areas:
- Ecology and Conservation
- Evolution
- Behavior and Physiology
Other requirements include an upper-level lab course and statistics.
The biological sciences are increasingly important in formulating and implementing policies relating to conservation, disease control, reproductive planning, and the ethics of science. For this reason we encourage our students to take an approved policy course; we will count one policy course as a departmental.
We suggest to our students, if their schedules permit, that they should take three departmentals in the fall of junior year—one in each area of the department. This breadth of experience enables our students to discover their area of special interest before needing to choose an adviser for the spring term.
We encourage our students to design a program that suits their interests and needs, so long as it meets our basic guidelines. The extensive list of cognates represents preapproved courses from other departments; proposals for one-time approval of 300- and 400-level courses directly relevant to a student’s interests should be directed to the Departmental Representative.