Curriculum

Course Work

Students attending the Institute follow a curriculum based on the requirements of the Department of Bioengineering. These are general requirements. Because of the variety of student backgrounds in life sciences and bioengineering, particularly for the Ph.D. program, specific requirements vary and are tailored to fit the student’s background and goals. 

Bioengineering courses are taught at the Hershey Medical Center or are made available via interactive video (PictureTel) from University Park. Please refer to the course descriptions for details. 

Life science courses are available to bioengineering students in the College of Medicine. These classes are offered in Anatomy, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Cell and Molecular Biology, Microbiology and Immunology, Neuroscience, Pharmacology, Physiology, Laboratory Animal Medicine, and Genetics (an intercollege program). In addition, courses in biostatistics and experimental design are available through the Department of Health and Evaluation Sciences.

Additional life science courses are available through the Huck Institutes of Life Sciences, which represents over 190 faculty members from 26 departments in six colleges on the University Park and Hershey Medical Center campuses. These researchers are members of the Integrative Biosciences Graduate Program, which provides a variety of options whose goal is to promote research at the interface between traditional disciplines in the life sciences. Students can choose from options that include Bioinformatics & Genomics, Cell & Developmental Biology, Chemical Biology, Ecological & Molecular Plant Physiology, Immunobiology, Molecular Medicine, Molecular Toxicology.  Dual advisors and research teams are features of several of these options. 

Other engineering courses are available at Penn State Harrisburg, which is located in Middletown, approximately 10 minutes from Hershey. Penn State Harrisburg has an enrollment of over 3500 students in upper division and graduate-level courses.