How difficult is Neuroscience as an undergraduate major?

Is it a bad idea to major in neuroscience as an undergrad? Which universities have the strongest undergraduate neuro programs?

• I'm really interested by several specific concepts of neuroscience such as psychopharmacology or HCI, however I'm not yet really sure that I want to spend my whole life doing research as entrepreneurship sounds like a perfect lifestyle to me. Is neuroscience as a major versatile in any way? Would it be more useful if paired with another major or a minor? If so, what?

• Answer:

  I would say that it depends. Depending on your undergraduate program, the neuroscience program may be more or less targeted to your interests. Because neuroscience is very broad, classes will often range from molecular biology to systems and computational neuroscience. Personally, I believe that getting that exposure to wide breadth of topics in a multidisciplinary field is incredibly useful if you want to do anything in the life sciences -- not just because you learn about a broad array of topics, but also because you learn to integrate tools from different fields. Most neuroscience programs will have biology/chemistry coursework that can overlap; the main distinction is that these classes will focus on neurons (specific emphasis on brain cells) and less on molecular/cellular interactions in the rest of the body. So depending on where you see yourself after graduation, it may behoove you to bolster your coursework with basic biology or chemistry (or biochem?) classes that will help you understand not just neural systems, but biological systems as well. As for the research vs. entrepreneurship, I think that neuroscience is in a unique place because the field is so new and so many startups and companies have been recently emerging from the research that is coming of out academic universities within the last decade. My advice would be this: while you are an undergraduate, try to get an research assistant position in a lab and see if you like it. If you do, maybe academic research may be a good fit. Alternatively, you can try researching in an industrial setting and see if that type of work is more up your alley. (They are very different, be warned now). In some ways, taking these courses in interdisciplinary fields not only helps you think about innovative ideas, but also helps you build connections with a wide range of of people -- this networking is probably helpful if you were interested in getting involved in startups or working on selling business ideas. I wouldn't worry so much about the career issue right now if you've got time -- just try out different options and you'll know when you've found a good career fit based upon your academic (or not-so-academic) interests.