<p>I'm an incoming freshman and I've been looking at the undergrad catalogs for biological science...what I've noticed is that many of the courses aren't showing up that were in the past years. Have they been getting rid of courses or what?</p>
<p>I’m not sure what you mean by course catalog. Are you talking about the online course search? Apparently, the online course listings for Fall 2013 aren’t anywhere near complete (in some cases, it’s my understanding that entire departments have courses missing as of a few days ago… no kidding). That could be why.</p>
<p>[FSU</a> Biology - Undergraduate Studies - Course Descriptions](<a href=“http://www.bio.fsu.edu/undergrad/coursedescriptions.php]FSU”>http://www.bio.fsu.edu/undergrad/coursedescriptions.php)
That lists the Biology Department’s courses, and when they are offered. For the ones listed as being offered “Every semester” I can verify that they have been offered every semester (including summer). A few courses that are offered “annually” in the Spring semester weren’t offered this semester, but in their place a number of “Fall only” courses were offered. </p>
<p>I still am a bit confused by your question, though.</p>
<p>[FSU</a> Biology - Undergraduate Studies](<a href=“http://www.bio.fsu.edu/undergrad/handbook.php]FSU”>FSU - Biological Science)</p>
<p>Actually I was looking at the pages where they show recommended courses for each track and the lists have gotten smaller and smaller… For example, on the zoology track page for 2011-2012, they list Aquatic Pollution Biology and Systematics, but not on the 2012-2013. I was just wondering if that meant they got rid of the classes; my memory isn’t great but I’ve heard stories that FSU has been getting rid of a bunch of classes because of money or something.</p>
<p>Oh I meant handbook BTW, sorry.</p>
<p>Majors undergo revisions every year. Courses are added, subtracted, changed, etc. Just because they remove a class from the list doesn’t mean they don’t offer it anymore. </p>
<p>It’s possible they simply didn’t offer it this spring semester. It’s also possible they did get rid of it. The only way to really know for sure would be to contact the department directly and ask them.</p>
<p>I wasn’t saying they did; actually that was my question to begin with, but thank you.</p>
<p>I was answering your question.</p>
<p>The department might have it in their plans to get rid of that course, so they removed it from the handbook. They didn’t offer it this semester, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they removed it. They could have removed it because it wasn’t popular or something. They could have accidentally removed it, when they meant to remove a different class.</p>
<p>There’s no real way of knowing what the reasoning is behind the change without contacting the department directly and asking. That’s what I was sort of getting at there. </p>
<p>You are right, that a lot of courses are either being consolidated or altogether removed.</p>