Student Opportunities
As a Biology major, you explore your interests inside and outside the classroom, taking a deeper dive into areas that interest you, answering questions that fascinate you, and earning leadership roles in organizations that matter. You will learn how to address people in the field, communicate effectively, and market yourself and your scientific skills. Here are just some of the opportunities to build your skillset, and your résumé, at Washington College.
Find the Perfect Opportunity
Internships
- Graduate with at least one or two internships in different labs. You will gain real, working experience on campus and off.
- Work with faculty on research projects.
- Secure an internship through our extensive alumni network, including at a lab at the University of California San Francisco or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
- Work with the Smithsonian George Mason lab semester program.
- Arrange your own internship experience through your own connections, or by tapping into the Center for Career Development’s extensive network.
Research
- Get into the lab as soon as your first year. You can begin taking upper-level labs as soon as your sophomore year, and nearly every course has a lab component.
- Complete a Senior Capstone Experience (SCE), pursing a topic that interests you from beginning to end. If you decide to add an area of emphasis to your degree, your SCE project should focus on that area: cell/molecular biology and infectious disease, ecology and evolution, or physiology and organismal biology.
- Work one-on-one with faculty to complete their research. You can co-author scientific papers with faculty.
- Hold an undergraduate teaching assistant (TA) position in the lab. You can work as a TA as soon as your sophomore year.
- Participate in field work.
- Become familiar with primary source material as soon as your first year.
- Create your own research project. Support, financial or otherwise, is available across campus, including through the John S. Toll Research Program or the Cater Society for Junior Fellows.
To get started thinking about what research you might be able to do at Washington College, review our faculty’s areas of expertise.
Get Involved
Build your résumé and expand your social circle simultaneously by joining clubs, honor societies, and more that help you connect with folks with similar interests.
- John S. Toll Research Program
- The Libby and Douglass Cater Society for Junior Fellows
- Phi Beta Kappa
- Honor Societies: Beta Beta Beta and Sigma Xi
- Clubs: Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA), STEM Sisters, Wildlife Conservation Club, and more.
Danielle Simmons '26
Still Pond, Maryland
MAJORS AND MINORS
- Biology and Environmental Science Majors
- Chemistry Minor
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
- Toll Research Fellow
- "I like this Toll Fellows program because I’ve gotten a good sampling of every job you could have in a biology setting: collecting, inputting, identifying, data analysis, writing up results, and presenting. If you want to go into a biology field, you can’t understand it until you do it.”
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Cate Manos '25
Elkridge, Maryland MAJOR
- Biology
- Pre-Health Professions Program
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
- John S. Toll Research Fellow
- HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America)
CAMPUS ACTIVITIES
- Captain of Women’s Lacrosse; Presidential Fellow
- Best Buddies; George’s General; Fetching Freedom
- “The career center is so helpful. I've been involved with the career center and my career advisor since my freshman year. She has been so helpful. She helped me look for different externships and internships and opportunities. And she helped me find an externship that I did the summer after my sophomore year at Mercy Medical Hospital in Baltimore. I got to work with a bunch of different nurses in the hospital, learn from nurses and physicians about working together and different specialties, and work with patients and see what it's like working in a hospital.”
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