Although College students are not required to complete a minor, students may choose to do so bring an element of cohesiveness to their electives. Students may choose to complete one or more minors to pursue secondary areas of interest or develop skills and a knowledge base which complements their major.
A Minor in Neuroscience
The minor consists of eight courses. All students are required to take NRSC 1110 (BIBB 109), Introduction to Brain and Behavior, three additional NRSC/BIBB courses and four additional courses from the approved course electives list. Students must earn a minimum grade of C- in courses taken to fulfill the minor requirements. Students must have a minimum of 3 courses that they count towards the minor and not towards any other major or minor.
Course substitutions are not encouraged and must be brought to the attention of the Director or Associate Director. If such a petition is granted, it is the student's responsibility to ensure the exception is entered on their Penn InTouch worksheet. Any modification in the requirements (e.g. course substitutions) must be requested by the student no later than the first semester of their junior year.
Students may not count NEUR LPS courses towards the minor.
Pre-approval is required for any courses taken at another university or during study abroad programs. To count courses towards the minor, students must submit the course information through XCAT for pre-approval.No credit will be considered after completion of a course taken elsewhere.
Students interested in declaring the Neuroscience minor should complete the following steps in order:
1. Download the Minor Application (Download Application for a Minor), complete it, and save the file as "NRSC Minor [LastName]".
2. Make an appointment with a Neuroscience advisor during advising hours to review their plan to complete the requirements for the minor.
3. After having their Application approved, students must make an official request to declare the major on the College website at https://srfs.upenn.edu/registrar/forms.
Four NRSC Courses Required:
NRSC 1110 (BIBB 109) - Introduction to Brain and Behavior, is a pre-requisite for all upper-division NRSC/BIBB courses and must be taken before additional NRSC/BIBB coursework.
Three Additional NRSC Courses: Any 3* additional NRSC/BIBB courses.
*Only one of these 3 additional NRSC courses may be NRSC3999 or NRSC4999 (students cannot count two semesters of research for credit towards their 3 NRSC courses)
Four Additional Elective Courses*:
BIOL 2810/BIOL 204 - Biochemistry
BIOL 2010/BIOL 205 - Cell Biology
CHEM 2410/2411*/CHEM 241 - Organic Chemistry
MATH 1400/MATH 104 - Calculus
PSYC 1340/PSYC 111 - Perception
PSYC 1462/PSYC 162 - Abnormal Psychology
PSYC 4230 - Introduction to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research
COGS 1001/PSYC 207 - Introduction to Cognitive Science
PHYS# 0101 & 0102 or 0150 & 0151 /PHYS# 101 & 102 or 150 & 151 - Physics
STAT 1010/101, 1020/102 or 1110/111, 1120/112 – Statistics
~ Students taking NRSC 0040/BIBB 040 may not also count NRSC 2240/BIBB 240 towards the major.
* Only the 1cu lecture portion of CHEM 2411 may be counted toward the minor. The lab portion of the course (0.5cu) may be used to satisfy general SAS elective requirements.
# Only two credit units of physics may be counted toward the minor. The lab portions of this course (0.5 c.u. each) may be used to satisfy general SAS elective requirements.