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Message from the Dean

The College of Natural Sciences consists of nine departments and offers bachelors, master's degrees, and curricula for pre-professional students in medicine, veterinary medicine, nutrition, physical therapy, and dentistry. Programs within the College of Natural Sciences can prepare you for science and health related jobs in the public or private sector, a career in teaching, a graduate or professional education. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and the Health fields (STEM+H) play an increasingly important role in our society. The college seeks to educate the next generation of scientists and future health professionals as well as a science-literate citizenship who are equipped to make informed decisions in daily life. The college educates teachers who effectively teach our children. Students in this college are provided a broad-based, fundamental education in the natural sciences and allied health fields and are challenged to think critically, analytically, and creatively.

The departments are well equipped with modern computers and scientific instrumentation, so that students graduate from our programs with state-of-the-art skills. The faculty and staff of the Departments of Biology, Chemistry & Biochemistry, Geological Sciences, Health Science and Human Ecology, Kinesiology, Mathematics, Nursing, Physics; and the School of Computer Science and Engineering are committed to providing an outstanding educational experience for majors. Alumni of the college demonstrate that its graduates are well prepared to enter graduate and professional schools or to assume responsible positions in industry or government.

The curricula offered in the College of Natural Sciences combine fundamental education in science with a broad human outlook, which develops the student's mental horizon beyond the limits of his/her immediate vocational objective. Each curriculum is designed to prepare graduates for specific professional positions in industry, government and teaching or for graduate and professional work in their disciplines. The four-year sequence covers the basic major courses and has sufficient free electives to allow students to develop specializations within the major and closely related fields.

General education courses are offered for all students. The need to understand the concepts of modern science and their relationship to life in our present world is important. The College of Natural Sciences also offers basic supporting courses for students enrolled in the professional and technological degree programs in other colleges of the university.

Few places in this country can match the California Inland Empire for the depth and caliber of scientific research. The college endeavors to help its students interact with this distinctive environment to gather the educational benefits from it, and then to make their own contributions to it through research, internships, cooperative education and other training placements, and shared facilities.

The faculty, many of whom are experts from industry or the research community, includes a number of minority and women professors and mentors, an important component of a university. Many of our students are first-generation Americans. Many are the first in their families to go to college. More than half of our students are members of minority groups, and many of the students are from groups traditionally underrepresented in the sciences and health professions. CSUSB is nationally recognized as a Hispanic Serving Institution.

Providing the means for people of exceptionally diverse backgrounds to come into their own is a major part of our identity. The College of Natural Sciences has been a leader in increasing the number of underrepresented minority students in the science-based fields, from elementary to graduate school.