<p>Question, which biology major offered at Cal is the most focused on the study of live organisms? From what I've seen there's Chemical Biology, MCB, Genetics and Plant Biology, Microbial Biology and Integrative Biology. What are the real differences between these majors? I mean I can tell the broad and general differentiations from their names, but what's REALLY different?</p>
<p>hmm i can't really answer your question since i dont know much about every single one of them;;.. but i would recommend you to go online and look at the classes, especially upper division classes, that each of the major requires you to take. most of the science majors, including different bio majors have very similar, if not the same, lower division requirements. They all require you to take chem1a, 3a/3b, and bio1a/1b, physics etc... so I guess most difference you could get is in the upper division classes... I know Genetics and plant bio and microbial bio's in College of Natural Resources (since I'm in that college right now).. other than that... hmmm I wouldnt really know how else to put the differences between all of them.
also just keep in mind that since the lower div requirements tend to be the same, you can always decide later.. like after your freshman or sophomore year.</p>
<p>i heard MCB you have to take harder math, while IB you dont have to take as hard of a math and you can concentrate into various specifics of biology.. theres a post somewhere on this forum about it!</p>
<p>which level of biology you want to study? live organism can mean many different things. you can study live bacteria or other microbes in microbial biology. you can study plants, fungi and ecosystem etc. in MEB and GPB. all these majors are offered in the college of natural resources.
<a href="http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/site/index.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/site/index.php</a></p>
<p>IB offers opportunity to study animals and others. i think you should take a look at the schedule and find out courses that match your interests the best. and find a major that encompasses all these courses the best.</p>
<p>if you're interested in whole organism biology (whether it's a fungus or an elephant) you want integrative biology. The faculty at the museum of vertebrate zoology (one the best university museums in the world) are all faculty in IB.</p>
<p>Integrative biology at other universities is often called organismal and evolutionary biology (harvard), Ecology and Evolutionary biology (Cornell) or something along those lines....do understand that these are very different majors than zoology (most schools no longer offer majors in zoology).</p>
<p>hope this helps.</p>
<p>CUgrad</p>
<p>Does anyone know about the Cell & Developmental Bio (CDB) emphasis for the MCB major? I'm trying to decide between SD (Human Bio), LA (Physiological Science), and Cal - is CDB comparable to these majors at the other schools?</p>
<p>The CDB track is about cellular development and processes. Subject matter includes:</p>
<p>Early development (fertilization -> birth)
Physiology
Endocrinology</p>
<p>Of course, that's not all. You have to take breadth from other tracks in MCB.</p>
<p>IB deals with everything not cellular in biology. That includes stuff like ecology, evolution, animal diversity, plants, and astrobiology.</p>
<p>Chem Bio is a mix of half chem and half bio leaning more towards the chem side. You take advanced math classes and try to quantize things like enzyme catalyzed reaction kinetics.</p>
<p>There's also molecular toxocology and plant+microbial biology that deals more with agriculture, arabidopsis, and yeast.</p>