Biology Major

Requirements for the Major in Biology

All courses for the Biology Major must be taken for a letter-grade, except CHEM 001A PO  and BIOL 040 PO .

1. BIOL 040 PO , BIOL 041C PO , BIOL 041E PO .
2. CHEM 001A PO , CHEM 001B PO  or CHEM 051 PO  and CHEM 110A PO .
3. MATH 030 PO , if needed, and one Pomona math course above Math 30. This course can be in calculus (MATH 031 PO  or
   MATH 032 PO
    ) or can be an approved statistics course such as MATH 058 PO , PSYC 158 PO  or BIOL 153 HM .
4. One upper-division laboratory or field course in organismal biology from BIOL 125 PO , BIOL 131 PO , BIOL 140 PO , or BIOL 166 PO , BIOL 169 PO .
5. Four additional upper-division biology courses, three of which must be laboratory or field courses.
6. Senior Thesis: BIOL 191F PO  or BIOL 194A PO .

• No more than one course credit from any combination of half-credit courses may be applied to the major.
• CHEM 115 PO , NEUR 102 PO , NEUR 103 PO , NEUR 130 PO  and NEUR 178 PO  may be substituted for upper-division biology courses.
• Students interested in ecology and conservation biology should take BIOL 041E PO  after BIOL 040 PO . These courses are pre-requisites for the following upper-division courses: BIOL 103 PO , BIOL 104 PO , BIOL 106 PO , BIOL 107 PO , BIOL 112 PO , BIOL 116 PO , BIOL 121 PO , BIOL 125 PO  and BIOL 132 PO .
• Upper-level courses taken at the other Claremont Colleges may be eligible for major or minor credit with prior written permission from the department chair. One course credit may be obtained for appropriate upper-division biology coursework undertaken in a Study Abroad Program with prior written permission from the department chair. If a student chooses an upper-level biology course to fulfill the requirements of another major, that course cannot be used to fulfill a Biology Department major or minor requirement.
• Senior Exercise. Seniors are required either to present a satisfactory research thesis based on original research in the laboratory or the field, completed over two semesters (BIOL 194A PO  and BIOL 194B PO  ), or to present a senior thesis in grant proposal format based on library research (BIOL 191F PO  or BIOL 191H PO  ). Students are strongly encouraged to take a course in statistics before beginning the Senior Exercise.

First-year Students
The department recommends that students interested in pursuing a major or minor in biology take the courses listed below in the first year.

This first-year schedule is also desirable for students contemplating majors in molecular biology, neuroscience or biology/public policy analysis.