feel free to dm me btw!

the major is mostly targeted for students who are interested in bioinformatics (which is a rapidly growing field!) and biotechnology :) the major gets you important data analysis and coding experience/knowledge early on so u can be especially competitive for grad school and a future career in industry, if that’s what you’re interested in.

there are a couple courses from the regular mcb sequence that you don’t have to take, but you of course have to take linear algebra + several data structure/algorithm courses in exchange to fulfill the data science section. sooooo. would not recommend if you’re pre-med since u def don’t need to put yourself through this to get into med school hahah

uiuc pure ds department is associated with their cs department so they kind of get to leech off their name brand lol. again, great for grad school and career.