Biology

专业详情

Biology is an exciting and rapidly developing subject area with great relevance to addressing global challenges from disease and poverty to biodiversity loss and climate change. The study of living things has undergone tremendous expansion in recent years, and topics such as cell biology, developmental biology, evolutionary biology and ecology, all of which are covered in the course, are advancing at a great pace. This expansion has been accompanied by a blurring of the distinctions between disciplines: a biologist with an interest in tropical plants may well use many of the tools and techniques that are indispensable to a molecular geneticist.

The modular structure of the Oxford Biology course encourages a cross-disciplinary approach. The options system in the second and third years allows students to study either a general background encompassing a comprehensive range of topics, or specialise in detailed aspects of animals, plants, cells or ecology. The course incorporates an optional fourth year, meaning students can either leave after three years with a BA or choose to stay on and complete an extended project under the supervision of an academic member of staff (which can be lab or field-based), in addition to advanced research skills training. Progression to the MBiol is contingent on satisfactory academic performance in the first three years.

The Biology degree is taught by the Department  of Biology, with almost all teaching taking place in the University’s Science Area. Additional resources include the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, the Botanic Garden, the Herbarium, the Arboretum, the John Krebs Field Station and Wytham Woods.

Skills training is an integral part of teaching across all years and there is a compulsory one-week field trip for all first-year students to study ecology. Compulsory skills training in the first year includes dissections as part of the Organisms module. Skills training in the second year is also compulsory and covers a whole range of more advanced practical and quantitative skills essential for a modern biologist. In the second year, students can choose from a range of extended skills courses that last one or two weeks: examples include ecological fieldwork (in the UK or overseas), genome sequencing and genome editing. In the third year, students specialise on a narrower range of options but skills training continues in the form of journal clubs, group projects and computer classes. Note: any overseas work requires financial contributions from the student.