JD/MS in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior: Curriculum

Law School Curriculum

Law School JD degree requirements for students entering Fall 2009 include satisfactory completion of 88 semester credits, and six semesters of full-time enrollment (defined as 12 semester credits or more). First-year students are required to take a core curriculum totaling 30 credits and comprised of the following courses: Beyond that, all courses are elective, except that a student must take a course in Professional Responsibility (3 credits) and Constitutional Law II (3 credits) before graduating. In addition, each student must satisfy a second-year writing requirement (typically by participating in a moot court or serving as a staff member on one of the Law School's law reviews), as well as a third-year writing requirement (typically satisfied by taking a course meeting this requirement, completing an independent research paper meeting this requirement, which may be an MS thesis, Plan B paper, PhD dissertation, or capstone project, or serving as an editor on one of the Law School's law reviews).

To see requirements for students entering in years other than 2009, visit www.law.umn.edu/current/degreerequirements.html.

In addition, all students in the Joint Degree Program in Law, Health & the Life Sciences take a professional seminar. This 1-credit Proseminar is taught cooperatively by faculty involved in the Joint Degree Program, offered on a pass-fail basis, and required each Fall semester that a student is enrolled in the Joint Degree Program.

JD/MS in Ecology, Evolution & Behavior

MS students in the joint JD/MS program will elect a Plan B (non-thesis) program and complete at least 30 semester course credits, with at least 6 of those outside the major field. Course credits may include EEB seminars, and a basic statistics course. Students must take ethics training during their course of study. Students' Plan B papers consist of 1 to 3 written reports of projects involving together about 120 hours of independent work. A project may be work on a short field or laboratory research problem or a review of primary literature. Students must pass a final examination.

Combining Curricula

Students in the Joint Degree Program combine their Law and science/health curricula by cross-counting up to 12 Law credits in their science or health program and up to 12 non-law credits in their Law School program. For more details, click on "Cross-Counting Courses" above.

JD/MS or JD/PhD students are eligible for a minor in bioethics, bioinformatics, or human genetics.