Record number of first-year students for Leiden Biology
150 new Biology students have arrived in Leiden. This is more than ever and we seem to settle among the big three Universities for Biology in the Netherlands.
The number of starting first-year biology students in Leiden has been growing from 70-90 to 120-140 over the last decade. This year we welcome a record number of 150 enthusiastic students for our Bsc-programme. Leiden Biology typically compares well in size with other good universities in Groningen and Wageningen, but has always been smaller than Utrecht and Nijmegen at their geographically strategic locations.
The student-to-staff ratio in Leiden remains a selling point as the teaching programme is the shared responsibility of the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) and the Netherlands Center for Biodiversity (NCB) Naturalis. These institutes are all housed in nearly adjacent buildings of the Leiden Bio Science Park (“Key to Discovery”): a unique situation for the Netherlands.
The new students will mainly follow lectures and do practical work in the van Steenis Building, in which there are brand-new study areas and for which practical rooms were expanded this year in anticipation of the growing student numbers. Many of their older fellow students are active at the same time in the research and education facilities of the nearby Sylvius Laboratorium
IBL-Director of Education Johan Memelink is pleasantly surprised with so many new students: “It’s good to see that there is so much interest in our teaching programme at Leiden. The study of Biology is not only fascinating, but it is becoming increasingly more important in today’s society. I wish all students a good start for a nice academic year.”