Despite Boston University budget cuts, professors in the College of Arts and Sciences have created a new neuroscience program that is garnering popular attention in its first full semester.
BU Center for Neuroscience Director, Howard Eichenbaum started developing the program in 2006 as part of an initiative by President Robert Brown to develop neuroscience study at BU. Neuroscience is composed of overlapping disciplines ‘- biology and psychology – into three applications: molecular and biological, psychological and cognitive, and computer model, Eichenbaum said.
In the summer of 2007, he handed the task to Neuroscience Undergraduate Academic and Research Affairs Director Paul Lipton. They applied for official recognition from the university the same year, and it became an official program in October.
Lipton and Eichenbaum both said the program would grow quickly, even with BU budget concerns.
‘A big part of the stimulus package that Obama is proposing, besides building bridges, is science,’ Eichenbaum said. ‘Things are looking good for neuroscience.’
Over 30 neuroscience and potential neuroscience majors came together to acquaint themselves with the new program Thursday in a meeting co-hosted by the Boston University Organization for the Mind and Brain Sciences and BU’s neuroscience department.
The meeting allowed the degree’s new members to meet each other and recruit anyone who was undecided, BUOMBS President Greg Guitchounts said.
Since its introduction in October, 48 students, freshmen through juniors, have declared neuroscience as their major.
Assembling a curriculum that adequately covers each area can be tricky, CAS biology undergraduate studies director Vincent Dionne, who helped formulate the curriculum, said.
‘Trying to develop a major that can bring all of those aspects to bear at the undergraduate level is a really interesting task,’ Dionne said. ‘It really puts a lot of pressure on students. These are often things that students in this day don’t get to experience until graduate school.’
Some new neuroscience majors said they find neuroscience has a less regimented course load than their former majors.
CAS junior Nigel Durham said he had more required courses as a dual major in psychology and biology, and his new major satisfies both curiosities with a more reasonable course load.
‘With neuroscience, it combines both of them,’ Durham said. ‘And it’s the stuff that I like.’
However, some prospective crossovers find the degree program’s 17 required courses to be too much to fit into their schedule.
CAS freshman Christopher Libby said he is also a double major in biology and psychology. Although he is excited about the program, he is reluctant to switch to neuroscience because it would require summer courses and restrict his other course interests.
‘It’s an emerging field,’ he said. ‘There’s a huge potential for research, and BU has the resources to do it.’
Though he said the neuroscience major would not grow to the size of biology or psychology, Lipton said he foresees more students switching into or entering the program.
‘I do think that over the next couple years we can see it grow to a number reaching 150 students,’ he said.
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