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Life Science Opportunities (Idea)

Campus Engagement
Culminating Learning Experience
Field Studies
Internships
Research
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Capstone/Project-based learning

Capstone or project-based learning course are widely available in the college of Life Sciences. In majors such as Bioinformatics or Athletic Training, a capstone course is required for graduation. In Molecular biology, a capstone course is entirely optional (listed as an elective course in the catalog), and in Genetics, Genomics & Biotechnology, a capstone course is not even listed on the undergraduate catalog. Capstone courses do have prerequisite courses related to the major, so it is unlikely that students are taking Capstone courses if it doesn’t correspond with their exact major. In the case of the Health Science Capstone course, for example, there are 7 prerequisite courses.

Competition (competing)

  1. By searching on the Life Sciences home page, I can find “college news” pages that highlight winners of competitions such as the BYU Food Science students that won the Product Development Competition or the Neuroscience student who won the 3 Minute Thesis Competition, or BYU’s fourth win at the National Collegiate Landscape Competition. However, competitions are not an experiential learning type on the departments’ websites, I generally only see internships/study abroad and research tabs. 
  1. In my experience, information about competitions is sent out to students via newsletters or word of mouth within classrooms. I’m sure that professors or the heads of departments are aware of some of these annual or new competitions that students can be a part of if they reach out and ask about them.  

Conference/Symposium/Workshop (Presenting)

  1. A really big and popular annual conference at BYU is the College Undergraduate Research Awards (CURA). During this conference, students from each of the Life Sciences departments showcase the mentored scholarly activities and projects that they have been participating in that add meaningful value for an organization. Below is the link to this website which gives students information about the deadlines, instructions, etc. 
  2. https://lscura.byu.edu/ 
  3. Like competitions above, conferences or symposiums or workshops are hard to find. There is no clear path to finding these competitions on the web page, so I’d assume that professors or other people within the department have some personal knowledge of what conferences/symposiums/workshops are available to students if they reach out and ask about them

Senior Project or Thesis

  1. Senior projects or theses are required for some specific majors, but not for others. In Food Sciences, students are required to complete a senior project or thesis for which a student must complete certain prerequisites leading up to those courses. In Cell Biology, for example, students have the option of choosing one of 7 capstone courses which all appear to be major-specific.  
  1. To give a more in-depth example of what these experiences look like, a student in Food Sciences had one of three options to enhance their career preparation: a) work in a research lab with a professor and work toward a publication and/or a presentation at a professional meeting, b) produce a senior thesis with a faculty mentor, or c) complete a summer internship.  

Clinical

Very few departments require or provide clinical opportunities. Athletic Training requires a two-calendar-year clinical internship experience, but I haven’t been able to find another department where this experience type is offered because they’re generally required for students in the nursing program.

Off-campus Internship

  1. Each department/major generally has a page of student opportunities that list jobs or internships available to their students. These can be arranged like a search page or even a shared Google Docs page, in the case of the department of Biology. Below is the example of the Biology Google Docs page.  
  1. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CnldnJzfgBY9aJrJPts18b_O8sgg7N20ByKcWt8soQo/edit 
  1. Below is an example of how the Public Health department organizes their internship search page: 
  1. https://phinterns.byu.edu/recommendedInternships 
  1. I’ve included these examples to show that each department has a different system they use, none look exactly alike but they all serve the same purpose: to connect a student with an internship opportunity. 

On-campus Internship

  1. On-campus internships can be found by searching within a specific department’s “student opportunities” page, as mentioned above. However, there is not specific filter for these internships so they really have to be searched for. In Public Health, for example, there is an on-campus internship opportunity listed on the website – but there’s only one. I’m sure there are more on-campus internships in Public Health and for other departments, but it means the student needs to reach out to their internship coordinator to ask about specific opportunities they know about that are on-campus.  
  1. The Nutritional Science department, for example, allows students to complete a for-credit on-campus internship by participating in research under a professor’s research interests or ongoing projects. Below is a link to their page. 
  1. https://ndfs.byu.edu/experiential-opportunities 

International Internship

  1. International internships are completed through the Kennedy Center. There are opportunities available to students from Biology, Health Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Plant and Wildlife Sciences, and Public Health departments. Not all departments/majors have an international internship program associated with them.  
  1. Internship courses within this college include: BIO 399R, CELL 399R, EXSC 399R, HLTH 496R, LFSCI 199R, MMBIO 399R, MMBIO 496R, NDFS 399R, NEURO 496R, PWS 199R, PWS 399R, STDEV 399R 
  1. https://lifesciences.byu.edu/00000180-d8b0-dde7-ad8c-fdb87a960001/internship-faqs 
  1. The above link is where Life Science students can learn how to find an internship, who to contact (their internship coordinator), and the internship process 
  1. Funding: The purpose of the Life Sciences Internship Travel Grant is to promote academic internships by offering up to $300 domestic travel matching awards for student academic internships outside of the local BYU area. 
  1. Funding: Life Sciences Funded Internships (LSFI) are prestigious summer internships – it looks like a placement program – with a facility whom the College has formal agreements with. The college will pay up to $8,000 to students who receive one of these prestigious internships.  

Practicum

I have found one practicum in the Neuroscience undergraduate catalog called the “Senior Practicum: Community Projects”

There are opportunities for research in all of the Life Sciences’ departments which all take minimal effort to locate.

The following Life Sciences departments have corresponding study abroad programs: Biology, Health Sciences, Life Sciences, Nutrition, Dietetics and Food Sciences, Microbiology, Plants and Wildlife Sciences, and Public Health 

Study abroad programs are entirely optional for all Life Science students no matter their department. Study abroad programs require students to enroll in two courses during the experience and oftentimes these courses have prerequisites to them, so it is unlikely that a student will go on a study abroad which is not directly related to their declared major. For example, the Plague, Penicillin, and Pasteur: Microbiology in Europe study abroad program requires that students take two upper-level courses from the following list: MMBIO 471, MMBIO 510, MMBIO 390R, or MMBIO 490R