General major and minor elective requirements:

• All biology majors must take five upper-level elective lecture courses.
• All biology minors must take three upper-level elective lecture courses.

Each upper-level lecture course falls under one or more of the following categories:

Cellular & Molecular Biology (C&M)

Physiological & Organismal Biology (P&O)

Ecological & Evolutionary Biology (E&E)

Computational Biology - Biology (CB-Biol)

Computational Biology - Computing (CB-Comp)

Each major track requires electives from a different combination of categories:

General Biology     1 C&M, 1 P&O, 1 E&E, 2 from any category

Cellular & Molecular Biology     4 C&M, 1 P&O or E&E

Physiological & Organismal Biology     4 P&O, 1 E&E or C&M

Ecological & Evolutionary Biology     4 E&E, 1 C&M or P&O

Computational Biology     4 CB-Comp, 1 CB-Biol

Biology minors must take biology lecture courses at the 2100-level or higher (BIOL BC2100+) to fulfill the elective requirement. Unlike biology majors, biology minors do not need to pay attention to elective categories and may take BIOL BC2100 for elective credit.

Major tracks involve a breadth requirement.

• Students on the C&M, P&O, and E&E tracks must take one upper level elective from another track.
• Students on the General Biology track must take one upper level elective from each of the C&M, P&O, and E&E tracks.
• Students on the Computational Biology track must take one upper level elective from the CB-Biol track.

Some courses such as BIOL BC2500 Programming for Scientists cannot count toward the breadth requirement, but can count toward other upper-level elective requirements. For example, if a student on the Ecological and Evolutionary Biology track takes BIOL BC2500, that student can count the course as an E&E elective but not as a C&M or P&O elective.

Important: While a course may be able to fulfill different requirements, it can count toward one requirement only.

• For example, if a student takes a course that falls under both the C&M and the P&O categories, the student can count it toward either the C&M or the P&O category, not both.
• A course that can count toward a lecture or a lab requirement will fulfill only one of those requirements. For instance, BIOL BC2490 Coding in Biology and BIOL BC2500 Programming for Scientists can be counted either as a lab or as a lecture course, not both.
• Similarly, a student may only major in one track. If a student meets the requirements for multiple tracks, they may choose which track is listed on their transcript.
• Exception: Some yearlong courses fulfill two course requirements. For instance, BIOL 3305 Project Lab in Molecular Genetics can count as either one CB-Biol and one lab class or two lab classes.

• BIOL BC2278 Evolution
• BIOL BC2490 Coding in Biology
• BIOL BC2500 Programming for Scientists*
• BIOL BC3304 Topics in Molecular Genetics
• BIOL BC3007 Intro to RNA-Sequencing Analysis*
• BIOL BC3308 Microbial Genomics (formerly called Genomics and Bioinformatics)
• BIOL BC3310 Cell Biology (or BIOL BC3041 Cell Biology)
• BIOL BC3320 Microbiology
• BIOL BC3352 Development (or BIOL UN3022 Developmental Biology)
• BIOL BC3362 Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience
• CHEM BC3282 Biological Chemistry (or BIOL UN3300 Biochemistry or BIOC UN3511 Biochemistry I: Structure & Metabolism)
• BIOL UN3004 Neurobiology I: Cellular & Molecular Neurobiology
• BIOL UN3034 Biotechnology
• BIOL UN3073 Cellular and Molecular Immunology
• BIOL UN3310 Virology
• BIOL UN3512 Molecular Biology

*Courses may count as an upper-level elective under the C&M, P&O, and E&E track categories, but cannot be used to fulfill the breadth requirement in any track. For example, if you are concentrating in the Cellular and Molecular Biology (C&M) track, you cannot take BIOL BC2500 or BIOL BC3007 as your one P&O or E&E course.

• BIOL BC2262 Vertebrate Biology
• BIOL BC2280 Animal Behavior
• BIOL BC2500 Programming for Scientists*
• BIOL BC3007 Intro to RNA-Sequencing Analysis*
• BIOL BC3320 Microbiology
• BIOL BC3352 Development (or BIOL UN3022 Developmental Biology)
• BIOL BC3360 Physiology (or BIOL UN3006 General Physiology)
• BIOL UN3005 Neurobiology II: Development & Systems
• EEEB UN3011 Behavioral Biology of Living Primates (Note that the 1000-level course with the same name does NOT count toward the major)
• EEEB UN3208 Explorations in Primate Anatomy
• EEEB W4112 Ichthyology

*Courses may count as an upper-level elective under the C&M, P&O, and E&E track categories, but cannot be used to fulfill the breadth requirement in any track. For example, if you are concentrating in the Cellular and Molecular Biology (C&M) track, you cannot take BIOL BC2500 or BIOL BC3007 as your one P&O or E&E course.

• BIOL BC2240 Plant Evolution and Diversity
• BIOL BC2262 Vertebrate Biology
• BIOL BC2272 Ecology
• BIOL BC2278 Evolution
• BIOL BC2280 Animal Behavior
• BIOL BC2851 Plants & Profits: The Global Power of Botany
• BIOL BC3007 Intro to RNA-Sequencing Analysis
• BIOL BC3320 Microbiology
• BIOL BC3380 Applied Ecology and Evolution
• EEEB UN3005 Introduction to Statistics for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
• EEEB UN3087 Conservation Biology
• EEEB UN3220 The Evolution of Human Growth and Development
• EEEB UN3970 Biological Basis of Human Variation
• EEEB W4110 Coastal Estuarine Ecology
• EEEB W4111 Ecosystem Ecology and Global Change

Note: CB-Comp courses offered by the Barnard biology department (starting with BIOL BC****) may count as an upper-level elective under other biology major tracks. However, CB-Comp courses cannot be used to fulfill the breadth requirement in any track. For example, a student concentrating in the Cellular and Molecular Biology (C&M) track cannot take BIOL BC2500 as their one P&O or E&E course.

• EESC BC3050 Big Data with Python: Python for Environmental Analysis & Visualization
• EESC GU4050 Remote Sensing
• COMS W3134 Data Structures in Java
• CBMF W4761 Computational Genomics
• PUBH UN3400 Data Science and Health Equity in New York
• BIOL BC2490 Coding in Biology
• BIOL BC2500 Programming for Scientists
• BIOL BC2841 Laboratory in Plant Evolution and Diversity
• BIOL BC2851 Plants and Profits: The Global Power of Botany
• BIOL BC3007 Intro to RNA-Sequencing Analysis
• BIOL BC3308 Microbial Genomics (formerly called Genomics and Bioinformatics)
• BIOL BC3590 Senior Seminar: Bacteria by Design**

**Topics for Senior Seminar vary by semester and instructor. Only the "Bacteria by Design" topic will fulfill an elective requirement for computational biology majors. If this course is taken to fulfill an elective requirement, it cannot fulfill the senior capstone requirement at the same time.

• BIOL BC3304 Topics in Molecular Genetics
• BIOL BC3310 Cell Biology (or BIOL UN3041 Cell Biology)
• BIOL BC3320 Microbiology
• BIOL BC3352 Development (or BIOL UN3006 Developmental Biology)
• BIOL BC3360 Physiology (or BIOL UN3006 General Physiology)
• BIOL BC3362 Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience
• BIOL BC3380 Applied Ecology & Evolution

Ask an advisor about new or less frequently taught 3000-level courses at Barnard or Columbia, or about transfer or study-abroad credit.