<p>A friend of mine would like to know how UCSD's human biology program ranks - I haven't been able to find it anywhere but maybe my google skills are just weak. >.<</p>
<p>Help would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>Bio at UCSD is renowned; I believe every single one of the bio programs (neuroscience, biochemistry, developmental biology, etc.) is ranked in the top 5-15 in the nation. don't remember if it's for grad or undergrad. probably grad. rankings are cool since they attract great minds to the area and even if the rankings apply to the grad programs, it's still reflected in the undergrad program, which is pretty awesome and allows you to get involved, as long as you're willing to go and find them. or in some cases, they come to you (job fairs, emails, etc.)</p>
<p>there are so many opportunities here to get involved in biology. the med school, scripps research, burnham, amylin, ucsd itself, VA hospital are all within 5 miles of here...you can't go wrong. and if you're nice and go to office hours, a lot of professors are willing to bend over backwards to do whatever they can for you, even if they have 300 students. you can even eat a really nice lunch with a professor for free!</p>
<p>you know that campbell biology book most ap bio students use? one of the contributors teaches at ucsd. he taught two classes last quarter. i just realized that when i opened my book today. and one of the guys who discovered that you can still produce brain cells as an adult is still working down the street (literally) at the salk institute. there's some other nobel prize winner who frequently surfs down at blacks beach and thinks he was abducted by aliens who...i don't remember what he did, but my bio professor mentioned him. and urey hall is named after the guy who did that experiment proving how organic materials can arise from organic materials. i think he was at ucsd a few years ago.</p>
<p>Ah I see, thanks for the input! Would you happen to have the undergraduate human biology program ranking though? My friend and I are both fully aware of UCSD's top-notch bio program but are just curious to see how the actual numbers stack up against some other high-level bio programs.</p>
<ol>
<li>that nobel prize surfer is kary mullis, inventor of PCR, arguably the most important contribution to molecular biology since plasmid engineering</li>
<li>harold urey died in 1981. his nobel-prize-winning experiments weren't performed at UCSD, he moved here in the later years of his career to help start up the chemistry department. and that critical experiment wasn't performed by him, it was by his graduate student stanley miller. and it was organic stuff from inorganic stuff.</li>
</ol>
<p>see what a UCSD education can do to you too? :)</p>
<p>as a veteran TA in undergrad chemistry and biochemistry classes, i will tell you that i automatically associate human bio majors with pre-meds. all the bio majors are essentially the same, it's just a name thing. you're welcome to take classes in whatever you'd like (and you should).</p>