Upper Level Electives
Upper Level Electives
Upper Level Electives
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.
C&M Electives
- 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.
P&O Electives
- 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.
E&E Electives
- 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
CB-Comp Electives
- 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.
C&B-Biol Electives
- 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.