Overview
The School of Science provides a high quality and challenging education for exceptional undergraduate students, offering studies in the sciences as well as interdisciplinary fields. Students interact with outstanding teacher-scholars as instructors, advisors, and mentors, and have access to modern, well-equipped facilities for hands-on experiences. Faculty members integrate comprehensive undergraduate research experiences into their scholarship, actively preparing students to meet future career or graduate school goals. An array of support programs is designed to provide any student with a desire to study in the School of Science the opportunity to succeed. The liberal arts setting of the College and the balance of theory and practice in the School prepare each student for lifelong learning and for contributing to the field and to society at large.
Academic Programs
- The School of Science is the second largest academic school at TCNJ, enrolling over 1,100 undergraduate majors.
- The School of Science comprises five academic departments, including Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics & Statistics, and Physics.
- Each student can tailor their own elective track within their major, or can customize their entire curriculum through TCNJ’s new “Self-designed” major. The first student to complete a Self-designed major at TCNJ graduated in May 2007 with an interdisciplinary focus in Biochemistry.
- The School of Science is also dedicated to producing exemplary teachers of science and math in collaboration with the School of Education through both elementary and secondary education programs.
- Science majors enjoy small classes and close interaction with faculty members both in and out of the classroom. Most classes have only 24 students, and some elective classes are as small as 10 students. Professors teach all of the lab sections.
- The Science Complex and the Biology Building are newly constructed facilities, and they, along with Holman Hall, provide students with state-of-the-art facilities and instrumentation, including: a planetarium, astronomical observatories, optics laboratory, nuclear magnetic resonance laboratory, x-ray diffraction laboratory, spectroscopy and chromatography suite, molecular modeling suite, electron microscopy suite, molecular biology laboratory, greenhouse, Sun workstation laboratory, Intel computing laboratory, mathematics education laboratory, and many computer classrooms. Individual laboratories are also designed to allow intensive interaction between students and faculty in an undergraduate-focused research environment.
Student Engagement
- Students quickly become members of the School of Science community by participating in seminars, engaging in social activities with faculty, and by joining one or more student organization(s).
- Many opportunities exist for students to conduct undergraduate research, either on- or off-campus, both during the academic year and the summer. Students engage in their own projects on a broad spectrum of disciplinary and interdisciplinary topics. Students present the results of their research investigations at scientific conferences at the local, state, national, and international levels, and they author and co-author papers in journals with their faculty mentors.
- A broad range of study abroad, field-based, and internship experiences are also available.
Student Accomplishments
- Seven Science students have received the prestigious, national-level Barry Goldwater scholarship in recent years.
- Biology Alumnus Dr. Joseph Ecker was recently elected into the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors an American scientist can achieve.
- Upon graduation, approximately 35% of Science graduates have entered health professional schools (medical, dental, veterinary, optometry, physical therapy), 35% have entered graduate schools (Ph.D, M.S.), and 30% have entered the work force directly.
- Approximately 84% of those students who have applied to medical school have been accepted. The national average is in the mid-40% range. TCNJ graduates have recently completed or are now attending medical school at such institutions as Yale, Washington University, Cornell, Thomas Jefferson, Mt. Sinai, Drexel, and UMDNJ.
- Some M.S. and Ph.D. programs in which recent TCNJ Science graduates have enrolled include Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, UCLA, Boston College, Penn State, University of Texas, and Rutgers.