Undergraduate

Skills Building and Professional Preparation

These are just some of the essential questions that bioethics—a relatively new and fast-growing discipline—seeks to answer. Students enrolled in the BMH Minor have the opportunity to probe these—and many other—pressing issues, drawing on recent scholarship from a wide range of disciplines, including: philosophy, medicine, law, psychology, sociology, anthropology, public policy, art and literature, international affairs, engineering, and environmental studies.

In the process of grappling with these key issues and others, students build transferrable skills that get them career ready. Such skills include: critical and analytical thinking, scholarly and applied research, effective writing and communication, policy analysis, interdisciplinary engagement, stakeholder identification, and ethical decision-making. In a skills-based employment market, these are critical abilities entering the work world and developing a successful career–whether entering the job market upon graduation or after pursing graduate or professional education. 

While the BMH Minor is beneficial to students in almost any major, it offers particular value to students planning to attend medical, physician assistant, dental, veterinary, or law school, as well as to students pursuing careers in health care, life sciences, engineering, public policy, humanities, informatics, or forensics. The knowledge and skills developed through the BMH Minor provide students with the tools they need to help tackle the major challenges facing society in the areas of medicine, public health, nutrition, and the environment—among many others. Moreover, BMH Minor graduates leave Penn State better prepared to engage as global citizens in a world that urgently needs talented stewards.

BMH Minor Requirements

Students must take 18 approved course credits. The curriculum begins with a mandatory introductory course covering basic bioethics concepts (BIOET 100/PHIL 132). Subsequent classes are selected from this list of relevant offerings. Students may petition for class substitutions. Permission for substitutions depend on the student’s other course work, as well as the nature of the requested course. The BMH Minor culminates with a required capstone (BMH 490), which involves original student research.