Board of visitors approves undergraduate new neuroscience degree program
On Monday, the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors approved a new Bachelor of Science degree program in neuroscience to be administered in the university's College of Science.
The new program comes on the heels of the board’s approval of degrees in computational modeling and data analytics, microbiology, and nanoscience which were approved in March.
If approved by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, the new degree program will fall under the college’s Academy of Integrated Science which will also oversee the computational modeling and nanoscience programs.
Students who enroll in the program will be exposed to a wide range of disciplines including biology, chemistry, economics, mathematics, physics, psychology, and statistics. Graduates will be able to integrate molecular, structural, physiological, cognitive, and behavioral aspects of the central and peripheral nervous systems.
The neuroscience degree curriculum will ensure graduates are competitive for a range of employment markets including those in biomedicine, biomedical engineering, government services with institutions such as the National Institute of Health, and Center for Disease Control, marketing sales, and graduate and professional degree programs.
Since 2009 neuroscience related jobs in Virginia have increased 85 percent, from 39,305 to 72,841 in 2013. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts an 11 to 62 percent increase in neuroscience-related jobs, depending on specialty, between 2010 and 2020.
The new degree program will begin in the 2015 academic year.
