The physics department has gotten clever and is taking advantage of its somewhat varied course offerings (though not that large, but arguably larger than the current chem dept offerings) to rearrange these offerings into several concentrations and majors. In particular, they’ve obviously come to the realization that many students have an interest in the life sciences or medicine and thus have made a biophysics major and life sciences physics major out of the course offerings. Also, it appears the engineering sciences major was approved so it appears that is an option as well. I personally don’t think highly of the lower division courses but it appears the intermediate and upper division courses have good instruction and provide very solid training overall. The guy teaching computational modelling and physical biology is very good in my opinion and I imagine he spearheaded the biophysics option. Link is below:
http://www.physics.emory.edu/home/academic/undergraduate/degree-programs.html
Hopefully chemistry will eventually release its plans as this is bound to affect many pre-healths.
Interesting to see if the Engineering Sciences major will make people interested in engineering to come to Emory rather just going to an engineering school like GA Tech or doing the 3/2 program with Tech. I’m guessing it will increase the number of these Engineering Sciences majors thorough the Physics department pretty significantly (probably to a significant enough extent that there may not enough room in the upper level classes or enough advising since the Emory Physics department has always been relatively small). The knowledge gained from a Physics degree is often seen by many as too academic and unemployable outside of academia (and jobs in academia are hard to find since the tenure system ensures a VERY slow turnaround for jobs), while engineering majors generally have much better job prospects (since most probably go into industry, where things move much more quickly and thus jobs open up more often) . Though the issue is that there aren’t true upper level engineering course offered through the major so I wonder how the first wave of graduates from this degree will compare to engineering majors from a solid engineering school in terms of having employable skills. And since Georgia already has a solid engineering school, in-state people may just choose the cheaper option unless maybe the track record for placement in high-paying engineering jobs from these Engineering Sciences majors is stellar.
Keep in mind that having an Engineering major at the undergrad level is not necessary for graduate studies in engineering if that’s what people decide to do later on. I have a friend who was a B.S. Physics major at Emory and did research in biophysics research as an undergrad, and is now doing PhD in Bioengineering.
The Life Sciences Physics or Biophysics degrees seem like a good fit for either pre-meds who have an interested in going into rad onc (the field in medicine where a physics knowledge base is most necessary for clinical practice), people who want to become medical physicists, or maybe even people who want to do bioengineering or BME at the graduate level.
@collegestu816: Yes, now they need to find a way to spread the word about the concentrations. I recently talked to Dr. Eisen about posting the existence of the QSS major w/bio substantive area ON THE BIOLOGY WEBSITE (he agreed it was a good idea so we’ll see. Last time I pitched an idea to him, it came to fruition 
). Why? Because biology is much more prestigious at Emory than any new or traditionally small or weak dept. would be. A student considering Emory for anything remotely life sciences related is likely to go to the chem, biol, or NBB dept. website first. To optimize the level of interest in these new concentrations and make sure the classes associated with them don’t end up cancelled due to low enrollment, there has to be at least one prestigious or popular dept. that makes students aware of the options. As for physics being less employable. I think most decent schools including Emory and Tech have got around that by having a significant if not most upper level courses (especially those with integrated labs) focus on certain computational approaches and methods that end up being marketable skills. Also, that along with their mathematical abilities will make them more marketable than some science majors.
Also, Emory ain’t gettin’ the best science students in Ga except for maybe in biol and NBB. Tech brand is much stronger among non-prehealth STEM oriented students. It would help to change this (even for OOS) as Emory, to boost its prestige, needs to pull in more folks into STEM who are non-prehealth (we need to have alumni who impact academia or biotech and pharmaceuticals significantly). Are those who we draw OOS similar or better, probably. More “prize-winners” from OOS likely land at Emory. I’m hoping chemistry’s changes will help facilitate more balance and maybe attract more non-prehealths, but the reputation of Emory for it cast a huge shadow over other potential opps and perhaps turns off those interested in pure STEM and basic sciences.