Hello! I am a junior currently looking into a variety of schools with a plan to major in neuroscience in order to go into neuroscience research in academia. A couple of schools I’m looking at such as Tufts only offer a cognitive science major and not neuroscience. Will I be at a disadvantage for graduate school/my future career if I major in cogsci instead of neuroscience?
What career or grad school goal ?
Short answer is no but finding a school should include a study you’d enjoy - if you truly have one pre defined.
Best of luck.
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Look at the coursework to compare programs. Cognitive science will likely also have computer classes and linguistics, but I would imagine at a school like Tufts, you could add more biology & psychology elective classes. While their graduate neuroscience Department is in Boston, it’s only about a 10+ min drive, and you might be able to get involved in neuroscience research in the grad department. Back in the day, my major ( well I double majored) but one major was called Biopsychology. Its now called Neuroscience and Behavior. You can surely get the background you need for grad school in neuroscience, especially if you augment it with additional electives in the Psych and Bio departments. Looking quickly at Tufts undergrad courses reveals lots of Psych courses in neurobiology, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, etc. Take a look, too, at the Neuroscience and Behavior major at Vassar.
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The answer to your question is no. Academic neuroscientists have undergrad degrees in a variety of majors, as it is an interdisciplinary field.
I don’t want this to sound insultingly obvious, but researchers who are more on the bio side of neuroscience most commonly did their undergrad in biology, and those more on the psych side studied psych as undergrads.
Neuroscience as an undergrad major is fairly new. It’s mostly just a bio degree with neuroscience electives. Depending on the individual program, the curricululm can be a little heavier toward bio or psych, but there’s not a ton of variation.
While bio and psych are most common, I know academic neuroscientists with undergrad degrees in chemistry, biochemistry, engineering, computer science, and all different flavors of biology. I personally favor broad traditional majors rather than niche majors because they offer more versatility after graduation, but that’s just my opinion.
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No expertise in neuroscience so I won’t comment broadly but Vassar is a great suggestion.
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This made me chuckle. My double major in Psychology AND Biopsychology (as I said that second one is now called Neuroscience and Behavior) was almost 50 years ago!! It’s not all that new! 
I mean calling a major by the name “neuroscience”. Certainly the content is quite old!
Decades ago, zoology, anatomy, and comparative physiology majors were more common and now those have become less popular.
“Neuroscience” as a major has gotten pretty trendy, but I studied neuroscience as an undergrad. It was called “biology”, however.
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Scanning the major at Tufts:
https://as.tufts.edu/psychology/academics/undergraduate-programs/babs-cognitive-and-brain-science
It mostly struck me as an interdisciplinary Psychology and Computer Science major, with a little Philosophy thrown in. Bio topics are among the elective options but not particularly emphasized.
Contrast that with, say, the Neuroscience major at Pitt:
You need a strong foundation in Bio and Chem and then they have almost all specific Neuroscience classes.
As others explained, these are both potentially valid options, but they are quite different. And exactly what grad programs they led to might overlap but also sometimes be different.
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And I happened to look at when the name of the major at Vassar changed to Neuroscience and Behavior. Twenty years ago!!! Fascinating that we can call it many things but the foundation seems similar. Mine was called Biopsychology but it was definitely neuroscience. Housed/ with faculty in both the bio and psych departments.
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Just looking at Vassar, they have a core of Neuroscience courses, then approved courses in other departments:
I’d say they are pretty close to like a 50/50 Psychology and Biology program.
Again, just yet another illustration of how different programs can focus on different things.
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I’m not saying there weren’t any neuroscience programs way back when. Just that they’ve become much more popular since I was in school. Obviously, people have been studying neuroscience for a long time. Neuro content was just hosted within bio and psych departments. Some schools name their neuro classes with a neuro prefix, but they’re usually the same classes that would have been taught in bio or psych previously.
I just don’t want students to get fixated on the names of programs and by doing so exclude a ton of wonderful options just because they’re called something different.
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I completely agree and that was my point. It certainly has become more popular in the 50 years since I pursued the major, and all of us are a saying that there are many ways to skin this cat, as they say. Most likely a cognitive science major will require the computer and linguistic classes. Both are likely to require, statistics, chemistry, etc, so what we are all saying is there will be a lot of overlap with the majors and the OP will be fine either way to pursue graduate work in the field.
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Ouch!!! 
Yes, exactly. I think we’re both hoping that OP can look at the curriculum of the programs and also consider the electives and minors that are available. OP can prepare very well for a career in academic neuroscience with majors that go by a lot of different names!
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I was reading through this thread and thinking, “wow, could undergraduate neuroscience majors really be that new? I was planning to major in neuroscience when I started college back in the dinosaur days…”
Well, I just looked it up, and it turns out the place I started college had one of the first undergraduate neuroscience majors 
Of course, I agree with all of you that an undergraduate major doesn’t have to be named “Neuroscience,” and you can do just fine with a bio, psych, cog sci or some other major, depending on what kind of research or work you want to do in this area, as long as you take appropriate coursework.
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I think with the reminiscing the thread got off track a bit - the OP asked:
Will I be at a disadvantage for graduate school/my future career if I major in cogsci instead of neuroscience?
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Hi everyone! Thanks so much for the feedback, I found it very helpful.
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@maryr I hope hearing here the history of the development of these majors gives you a greater understanding of why the programs and coursework are nuanced and may vary at different schools, and helps you make an informed choice. Having input from people directly in the field and with firsthand experience gives you the perspective you might not get elsewhere. We are happy to help. That is what makes CC great.
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