The B.S. biophysics degree is a good choice for students who want to prepare for graduate research related to biology, biochemistry, bioengineering, biophysics, computational biology, medical physics, molecular biology, neurobiology, and physiology, while the B.A. biophysics degree might be more appropriate for students who want to go into biotechnology, consulting, industrial research, journalism, law, medicine, and science teaching. (But a student who wants to go to physics graduate school should major in physics.)
Biophysics majors seeking the BS degree are strongly recommended to take:
- a research-independent study related to biophysics, with the topic approved by the Biophysics DUS.
- an introductory course on computer programming such as Computer Science or Engineering as soon as possible. Programming is essential for nearly all biophysics-related research, for analyzing data and for controlling and carrying out experiments.
- an introductory statistics course that will give them the background to understand how complex biological and medical data are summarized statistically, and to carry out statistical analysis themselves. Some possible courses are Probability and Statistics in Engineering and Introductory Biostatistics.
