<p>I am really interested in the Duke neuroscience program and I was wondering if anyone knew anything about it.
-Around how many students have neuroscience as their major
-What do students you know who have a neuroscience major say about it? is it really hard and/or time consuming or is it about average in terms of difficulty.
-Anything else you might know about it that's not on the website.</p>
<p>Neuroscience is a relatively new major, so there aren’t many people in the program because of that. Last year, there were 9 majors that graduated (looking at the picture on their website), but I have definitely heard a lot of underclassmen saying they want to major in neuroscience for many different reasons, so the department is definitely growing quite quickly. It’s definitely popular with premeds because it gives you a different background than simply a bio or chem major would. </p>
<p>In terms of difficulty, looking at the course requirements on the website, the 10 courses above the prereqs all do not look too hard if you put in the effort. The prereqs look like you could knock them all off with APs if you have them, and there are no pre med classes you have to take unless you don’t have AP Bio because you would have to take bio 101 or 102 which are pre med. You could take chem 151 (orgo 1) but you don’t have to since it’s a only one of the two options. However, if you are premed you would have to take all the hard premed courses of course in addition to the requirements of the neuroscience major. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>ok thanks, also does this look easier than the traditional bio or chem major?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Probably the same difficulty as a traditional biology major (though it does depend upon upper-level class selection), and it’s probably slightly easier than a chem major (because there is no tortuous pchem and achem). </p>
<p>Frankly, I think it’s a great major if you DEFINITELY know you want to do neuroscience in grad school or something, but I think a general bio major will probably serve as a better foundation for any students who are still uncertain about their intended postgraduate field of study. If you think you are interested in neuroscience, but are not really sure, you should definitely consider taking the freshman exploring the mind FOCUS or some of the intro level classes in order to get some exposure. Another option is to major in biology or chemistry and minor in neuroscience (or even double major, but that may be overkill).</p>