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
• NSBV BC2002 Statistics and Experimental Design

*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
• NSBV BC2002 Statistics and Experimental Design

• EESC BC3050 Big Data with Python: Python for Environmental Analysis & Visualisation
• 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**
• NSBV BC2002 Statistics and Experimental Design

*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.

**Different topics for this course are taught each semester. Only Bacteria by Design will fulfill this requirement. This class may count as either an upper-level elective course OR the senior capstone experience.

• 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.