Below is a listing of the required and elective courses for the new Bioinformatics and Computational Biology major, which will go into effect Fall 2010.

NOTE: This is not a complete list of requirements. See the UMBC Undergraduate Catalog for the full listing of requirements for this program, a list of participating faculty, information about research opportunities, the Biological Sciences Tutorial Center, and Student Organizations.

Download the Bioinformatics Requirements Worksheet (PDF)

Download the Bioinformatics Requirements Worksheet with suggested course "itineraries" (PDF)

A total of four additional courses are required, to be selected from the two lists of BINF electives. One course is to be selected from List A, and another from List B. The other courses may be selected from either list.

A student planning to complete the B.S. in Bioinformatics & Computational Biology should begin a first course in chemistry during the first semester of the freshman year. The mathematics sequence should also be started as soon as possible.

Transfer students with an interest in Bioinformatics should contact the BINF steering committee chair as early as possible upon their arrival to UMBC in order to receive proper advising in degree planning.

Different career options and optional minors in other disciplines are available to BINF students. Please consult the BINF itinerary guidelines. These itineraries are meant only as illustrative guidelines of different pathways in the major. They do not define nor constitute strict or fixed pathway requirements for completion of the major.

On its own, the BINF major does not satisfy pre-med/pre-pharm/pre-dent requirements.

Students wishing to switch to the 2010 BINF curriculum from the previous curriculum should contact their advisor as soon as possible.  See the available information on the new BIOL 2010 curriculum for the phasing out of the old-program BIOL courses. The BINF B.S. will adhere to the rules for correspondences between new and old BIOL courses.

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Students must complete the courses below with a Grade Point Average (GPA) no lower than 3.0 and with no grade lower than “C” in any of the courses. At least three of these courses must be completed at UMBC. A course may be repeated once to meet gateway requirements, but both grades will be used to compute the gateway GPA. (e.g. a student receiving a grade of “B” in all six gateway courses with one enrollment in each course will have a gateway GPA of 3.0. A student receiving an initial grade of “C” and a repeated grade of “B” in CHEM 101, with a “B” in all other gateway courses, will have a gateway GPA of 2.86).

Students who do not meet the above criteria (e.g. transfer students who transfer in more than three of the above courses) may petition the BINF steering committee for admission to the program.

Pre-requisites and co-requisites for all BIOL courses will be enforced. Pre-requisites in all biology courses must be satisfied with a grade of "C" or higher.
The department will adhere to university policies that limit to three the number of times a student may register for the same course.