Health

Concentration Adviser: Holly Ewing

A concentration in Health within the ES major gives students the opportunity to consider relationships between human and environmental health.  This concentration takes primarily a biological perspective on health and prepares students for in-depth theses in this area.  The entry level chemistry and biology courses introduce students to basic principles necessary for more advanced studies in the biological sciences.  BIO 242 and several of the Group A courses teach skills necessary for students pursuing careers in health professions by requiring students to read primary literature, design and conduct their own experiments, and write the results in scientific journal format.  Group B courses examine health from disciplines outside of the biological sciences and offer students perspectives critical to formulating solutions to complex issues in health.

Students may wish to pursue a Bates general education concentration (GEC) in Public Health (C065, seehttp://abacus.bates.edu/catalog/?s=current&a=renderDept&d=GEC#C065) to further their health studies, but are reminded that only one course can count towards both major and GEC requirements.

For the ES Health Concentration, the courses that count for the fourth course (200- or 300-level) in the core are as follows:

  • ES/RU 216 Nature in Russian Culture
  • ENVR 227 Catastrophe and Hope
  • EN/ES 237 Books That Changed the World
  • AN/ES 242 Environment, Human Rights, and Indigenous Peoples
  • ENVR 272 Oikos: Rethinking Economy and Ecology
  • ENVR 301 Politics of Nature
  • ENVR 334 The Question of the Animal
  • AN/ES 337 Social Movements, NGOs, and the Environment
  • ENVR 340 Literatures of Agriculture
  • ENVR 348 Nature and the Novel
  • ENVR 350 Environmental Justice in the Americas
  • ECON 222 Environmental Economics

Concentration Requirements

  1. CH/ES 107B Chemical Structure and Its Importance in the Environment
  2. CH/ES 108B Chemical Reactivity in Environmental Systems
  3. BIO 190 Organismal Biology
  4. BIO 242 Cellular and Molecular Biology
  5. (5-7) Three classes from the following lists, only one of which may be from group B

Group A:

Group B:

Details about thesis and course sequencing (plus some advice with respect to graduate and professional schools)

It is important that students potentially interested in the ES Health Concentration take as many of the introductory science courses (CHEM 107CHEM 108, and BIO 190) as possible in their first year. Early completion of these courses limits the number of lab courses that might need to be taken in any one semester and ensures that students will have required courses completed in a time frame relevant to completing a thesis.  Early completion also allows the greatest amount of choice with respect to study abroad.  Students with an AP Biology score of 5 may be able to skip BIO 190 with permission of the instructor.  If this option is exercised, such students will take one additional course from among those in the Group A list (above) to further their skills in college-level biological science.  All students wishing to pursue graduate work in public health are encouraged to take Biostatistics (BIO 244).  Students wishing to pursue the B.S. degree will need to complete MATH 105 and 106 and PHYS 107 and 108.  Students interested in medical school or other health professional schools will need to complete additional prerequisite courses and should see the Center for Purposeful Work’s recommendations.