Majors & Minors

This program is intended for students with an interest in astronomy who may not intend to pursue a career in the field.

This program is intended primarily for students who are interested in a career in astronomy.

The astronomy minor is open to all students. A minimum of three courses taken toward the minor must be unique to the minor.

The Behavioral Economics and Psychology (BEEP) program aims to train students in a comprehensive set of skills necessary to understand how economic actors make decisions in real-life settings, to understand how these decisions affect economic and social outcomes and to design interventions to improve these outcomes. Concretely, students will:

1. acquire knowledge about human cognition and decision-making and become capable of modeling behavior;
2. study how individual behavior affects outcomes in strategic interactions and markets; and
3. learn tools to collect and analyze information relevant to the areas of inquiry explored in the program.

Completion of the program requires a minimum of 128 units.

This minor offers a series of classes that offer a broad perspective of recent research on economic decision-making. Theoretical classes will review traditional theories of decision-making based on the economic rational paradigm as well as new behavioral theories designed to better capture actual decision-making. Experimental classes will cover standard and novel experimental methods used to study economic decision-making and game theoretical paradigms.

This degree is offered jointly by the Departments of Biological Sciences and Chemistry.

The general education, writing, foreign language and diversity requirements for a degree in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences are applicable.

Students must complete each required course in the Departments of Biological Sciences and Chemistry with a grade of C- or better, and maintain an overall GPA of 2.0 or better in all attempted courses in the two departments in the regular degree program.

The general education, writing, foreign language and diversity requirements for a degree in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences are applicable. This degree provides general life science training and is suitable for double majors. Students seeking a more focused curriculum may choose from four areas of emphasis within the Biological Sciences major. These are Biotechnology; Ecology, Evolution and Environment; Marine Biology; and Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. Areas of emphasis are denoted on transcripts.

The general education, writing, foreign language and diversity requirements for a degree in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences apply. Biotechnology involves the utilization of biological processes and living organisms for human benefit. A rapidly growing part of the U.S. and global economies, biotechnology represents one of the main career paths for life scientists who do not wish to go into academic or clinical careers. The present is a "golden age" in the history of biotechnology due to many relatively recent transformative innovations. These technologies collectively provide a platform for using living systems to solve many of the core problems that plague society, including cancer, inherited and infectious diseases, food scarcity and environmental issues.

Students will learn skills necessary for professional jobs in the biotechnology industry. Because biotechnology is composed of a number of subsectors (e.g., synthetic biology, genome editing, clinical diagnostics, cell therapies, plant-based meats), the goal is to provide students with broad training in applied life science and business skills. Students will benefit from core courses that provide essential conceptual knowledge in both biology and business. They will then specialize through upper-division electives focused on life science applications involving biological macromolecules, cells or organisms; business skills needed in the biotechnology industry; and/or experiential learning through hands-on course work, directed research and/or internships. The highly interdisciplinary nature of this emphasis will give students a broad foundation needed to succeed in the modern biotechnology industry or to pursue graduate education.

The general education, writing, foreign language and diversity requirements for a degree in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences are applicable. Among all undergraduate degrees in Biological Sciences offered by the Department of Biological Sciences, this degree provides the most general life science training. Students seeking a more focused curriculum may choose from four areas of emphasis within the Biological Sciences major. These are Biotechnology; Ecology, Evolution and Environment; Marine Biology; and Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. Areas of emphasis are denoted on transcripts.

The general education, writing, foreign language and diversity requirements for a degree in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences apply. All students will take foundational courses in biological sciences, chemistry, math, statistics and physics. The Ecology, Evolution and Environment emphasis empowers students with the experimental and theoretical tools required to understand the forces that drive and maintain biodiversity on the planet. This fundamental question spans many different hierarchies in biology – from genes and molecules, to organisms and populations, to species and ecosystems. How do all these interactions work, and what causes them to fail? The Ecology, Evolution and Environment curriculum was designed by active research faculty with an eye towards modern biological techniques and a strong emphasis on field biology. Ecology, Evolution and Environment students will be uniquely prepared to pursue a career in sustainability in addition to careers with a strong focus on ecology, evolution and environment in both the public and private sector.