Biology

Biology, the study of life, is an exciting and rapidly developing subject. Breakthroughs in Biology are playing a key role in addressing global challenges, from disease and poverty to biodiversity loss and climate change.

The study of living things has undergone tremendous progress in recent years. This progress has been accompanied by an integration of different biological disciplines.

A typical week

In the first year, your typical weekly timetable can be broken down into the following categories:

• Lectures: around eight hours a week
• Research skills: around six hours of laboratory practical demonstrations (practicals), one hour of computer practicals and one hour of group discussion sessions each week
• Tutorials: this will depend on individual colleges, but on average one hour a week, plus preparation time.

In the second and third years, the lecture and research skills workload remains roughly the same although there is a greater element of choice over the subjects studied.

Lectures and practical class sizes will vary depending on the options chosen, ranging from as few as 20 students in a class up to potentially 120 students in a class. In the third and fourth years, variable hours are also spent on research projects.

Most tutorials, classes, and lectures are delivered by staff who are tutors in their subject. Many are world-leading experts with years of experience in teaching and research. Some teaching may also be delivered by trained PhD students and early career researchers with hands-on research experience.

To find out more about how our teaching year is structured, visit our Academic Year page.

Courses

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Assessment

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• The three compulsory themes are:
  • Diversity of life
  • Building a phenotype
  • Ecology and evolution
• Compulsory skills training including a group mini-project in the first term
• A residential field course in the summer term

Three written exam papers (assessing lecture material and research skills); assessed practical write-ups

Around 40% of Oxford biology graduates go on to further study such as a research doctorate or postgraduate course in an applied field, while the vast majority of the remainder embark on a professional career after graduating in areas as diverse as education, research, not for profit, health, environmental work, media, marketing, and consultancy. Hannah, now a research assistant at the Royal Veterinary College, reports: ‘My degree gave me a keen interest in my subject and the skills to pursue it. So far I have tracked rhinos across deserts, chased birds across oceans, and am currently working with chickens!’ After graduation, Jenny spent several years in a medical communication agency environment and now has her own business, working directly with major global pharmaceutical companies. She explains: ‘The tutorial system and writing opportunities during my degree were critical in developing the skills needed to analyse and interpret data, present them clearly and concisely in context and discuss results of clinical trials.’ The new Biology course was introduced for the first time in 2019; hence only career data for a single cohort of graduates is currently available. The information reported here is therefore based on the more extensive data from the previous 3-year BA in Biological Sciences, corroborated by information from the first cohort of graduates from the new course.