Sample Cross-Disciplinary Curriculum at MARC U-STAR Institutions (Biology Major)

The MARC U-STAR program is an institutional undergraduate biomedical research training program designed to competitively prepare honors students in their final two years of undergraduate education (typically called the junior and senior years) for competitive biomedical and behavioral research Ph.D. programs. The goal of the program is to increase the number of students from underrepresented minority groups obtaining science Ph.D. degrees to create a diverse and inclusive biomedical and behavioral workforce. To this end, MARC institutions must provide a rigorous curriculum, steeped with training in the quantitative (physical, mathematical, chemical, engineering, and/or computer) sciences along with the study of life sciences for a cross-disciplinary approach for student learning. The rigorous curriculum must be presented such that students, upon graduation, are prepared to enter competitive Ph.D. science programs. Thereby, the sequence of the courses taking (i.e., taking calculus early in their academic tenure) and course content are important to training for high caliber graduate school (Ph.D.) entry. Shown below is an example of a typical curriculum of study at a MARC institution: