{"id":6450,"date":"2017-10-06T12:04:27","date_gmt":"2017-10-06T20:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=6450"},"modified":"2017-10-06T12:04:27","modified_gmt":"2017-10-06T20:04:27","slug":"get-know-major-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/get-know-major-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Get to know a major"},"content":{"rendered":"
Sam Dunaway | News Editor<\/span><\/h5>\n

Western Oregon offers a wide variety of majors that students can choose to pursue, but many students don\u2019t know the full scope of degrees that are offered. This week, explore what a Bachelor of Science in biology includes and the fields of work it can lead to.<\/span><\/p>\n

Savannah Kumar is a senior transfer student finishing her last year as a biology major with a pre-professional emphasis.<\/span><\/p>\n

When asked why she chose this major, Kumar responded, \u201cI chose biology, and very specifically pre-professional biology, because it gave me a really good path to go towards the career goal that I wanted, which was medicine. I want to be a doctor. So I know that the pre-professional biology program here at Western encompasses all the classes that you\u2019re going to need in the future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Western\u2019s website, a degree in biology aims to prepare students for professional careers in biology and science education, or in Kumar\u2019s case, entrance into graduate schools in the health sciences.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy next step is medical school,\u201d Kumar said. \u201cI\u2019m currently applying and just exposing myself, not only to the application process, but also what it\u2019s like to be a doctor. I spent this summer shadowing other physicians to get an idea of what my life would be like in the future \u2026 I really wanted to make sure 100 percent that that was what I wanted to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She added, \u201cI think for the most part, going to Western and having the classes that I\u2019ve had and the professors knowing that the pre-professional emphasis students are all going to go into grad schools or professional schools of some sort, they really make sure you know that it\u2019s important to take those steps.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Western\u2019s biology department head Kristin Lathan-Scott explained, \u201cwe currently have nine upper-division courses with authentic research experience and 10 faculty members who have had undergraduate students on individual or group research projects \u2026 a few research projects have given students the opportunity to present at local and national research conferences. \u00a0We also work with students who want to shadow a professional in the field or obtain an internship\/research position off campus.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When asked to give advice to students considering a biology degree, Kumar replied, \u201cbe ready to learn outside of what your comfort zone is. My comfort zone is absolutely medicine \u2014 the body, the anatomy and physiology \u2014 but I had to really expand my horizons. Biology also encompasses plants, and that\u2019s not my strong suit, but you have to work at it. My advice is, because biology is all-encompassing, you\u2019re going to learn that there are things that are not your strong suits and you will eventually learn to love them as a part of your major.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She added, \u201cYou\u2019re learning about the world when you\u2019re learning about biology. And it\u2019s eye opening in every respect.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contact the author at journalnews@wou.edu<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sam Dunaway | News Editor Western Oregon offers a wide variety of majors that students can choose to pursue, but many students don\u2019t know the full scope of degrees that are offered. This week, explore what a Bachelor of Science in biology includes and the fields of work it can lead to. Savannah Kumar is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1017,"featured_media":6451,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1017"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}