5 Natural Sciences Course Programs in China

The global health major introduces students to global health as an area of study, research, and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide. A synthesis of population-based prevention with individual-level clinical care, global health aims to reduce health disparities through attention to modifiable determinants of health and provision of sustainable health services and human development. As a field of study, global health has emerged from tropical medicine, public health, and international health to encompass the complex transactions between societies that are a defining feature of globalization. Because many global health problems stem from economic, social, environmental, political, and healthcare inequalities, defining these problems and designing solutions is highly interdisciplinary and involves fields that span across health sciences, medicine, and public health, but also that bridge to a broad range of other academic fields, including biology, agriculture, anthropology, business, computer science, engineering, environmental sciences, economics, history, law, psychology, public policy, and sociology, among others. To introduce students to this interdisciplinary field, the global health major integrates courses in the natural and social sciences and encourages students to take relevant electives in the humanities.

The pressing needs for sustainable development, acceptable environmental quality, and the urgency to address climate change are placing increasing demands upon governments and industries locally, nationally, and worldwide. To help meet those demands, the Environmental Science major provides training for students intending to enter environmental professions or to pursue graduate study in environmental science and related fields such as biology, chemistry, public health, law, and policy. The major offers an interdisciplinary course of study that combines elements of the natural and social sciences relevant to understanding the biosphere and its interaction with human society.

We live in an era where the availability of unprecedented amounts of information and computing resources is erasing the traditional boundaries between disciplines. This is creating new opportunities for multidisciplinary teams to actively engage with and to change the world around them. Experts who combine deep disciplinary knowledge in Mathematics and Computer Science with interdisciplinary skills will play a leading role in such multidisciplinary teams. Applied Mathematics and Computational Sciences is a highly interdisciplinary field which integrates concepts and principles from Mathematics and Computer Science and applies them to Sciences, Engineering, Humanities, and Business. Its distinctive character is an emphasis on modeling and computational thinking that is firmly based on solid theoretical foundations.

All biological sciences rest on two central principles – all organisms and their characteristics are the product of evolution, and all life processes have a physical and chemical basis. Simply put, at the most fundamental level, there is a shared molecular basis of life. Despite the astonishing diversity of living organisms, from bacteria living in deep ocean hydrothermal vents to cherry trees flowering in the spring to complex modern humans shaping the world around us, many features of all organisms at the cellular and molecular levels are fundamentally similar because of shared evolutionary history. Discoveries of fundamental molecular mechanisms in one species – a bacteria or fungus or fruit fly, for example – often apply to other distantly related organisms like humans. Solving many of the most perplexing and challenging biological, agricultural, medical, societal, and environmental problems in today’s world requires a broad and deep understanding of the molecular basis of life.

Many of tomorrow’s innovations in fields such as fast computing, renewable energy generation, batteries, plastics, textiles, and transportation will rely on the unique and novel properties of materials. The development of such materials requires integrated knowledge in physics, chemistry, and biology, along with advanced mathematics and computation. The Materials Science major introduces students to the interdisciplinary study in materials science, which includes atomic and molecular structure, mechanical and thermodynamic properties, electric and magnetic properties, and fabrication methods and applications, together with disciplinary training in either physics or chemistry.