<p>This was not true at the schools where I’ve attended and/or taught (Claremont Colleges, MIT, Yale). I don’t think your experience at your particular school is sufficiently generalizable to make such a blanket statement absent supporting data. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and your claim that organismal biology is essentially unavailable within current biology programs is an extraordinary claim.</p>
<p>You do raise an important point, however–different schools have different curricula with different emphases, and when looking at programs students need to go beyond department and major titles and make sure the school offers what they are looking for.</p>
<p>And I am all for non-traditional paths–I was a pure math major who subsequently segued into laboratory biology–but for marine biology a “chemical engineering degree is better”? Really?</p>