I’m a future undergraduate student hoping to go down the Bioinformatics/Computational Biology route as a researcher. I know that Brandeis gives an MS on Bioinformatics. I also know that Rochester Institute of Technology, for example, offers a BS in Bioinformatics. How should I go about choosing my school? Would Brandeis be a good choice? Is Rochester Institute of Technology much worse, or just not research oriented?
On the undergraduate level, bioinformatics will, when available, commonly be integrated across several disciplines, as in these descriptions of Hamilton’s curriculum:
http://academics.hamilton.edu/biology/home/bioinformatics.html
http://academics.hamilton.edu/biology/home/bioinformatics.html
Approaching the field too specifically at this time could be counter-productive, in that it might unnecessarily limit your college choices.
Agreed. Bioinformatics is something you pursue at the graduate level.
Even if you look at the bioinformatics major at RIT, it’s essentially a blend of computer science and biology. You could create the same major at most colleges with a biology department and a computer science department. Most colleges allow students to design their own majors, or you could double major or major in one and minor in the other.
The links above were inadvertently identical. This site further describes the curricular integration of bioinformatics as you may typically find it:
https://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/bioinformatics-at-hamilton
Rensselaer offers a bioinformatics/molecular biology major - you can focus on one or the other.
Wesleyan:
http://igs.wesleyan.edu/
Michigan offers an Informatics Degree with a concentration in Life Science within its College of Literature, Science, and Arts.
It is very Stats heavy with a good amount of CS and some Bio (depending on how you strcuture your upper level electives).
You can’t go wrong studying [Bioinformatics at Rensselaer](https://science.rpi.edu/biology/programs/undergrad/bs-bioinformatics)