Gordon Uno, a biology professor at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, offers one increasingly common solution in burgeoning scientific fields whose content refuses to be crammed into an academic calendar: "Realize that you can't do it all. It's better to know a few things well than a lot of topics not well at all." One new biology text has sheared 200 pages off the typical 1,000 by substantially shrinking the diversity section, instead weaving in examples of different organisms in all chapters.
Another approach to handling the information overload is a "cap- stone" course in the senior year to tie together concepts learned in different courses. Or, simplest of all, a single course too packed with topics can be expanded to two semesters.
Separate out the majors At Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., business majors can take professor David Adams's "Chemical Technologies in the Manufacturing System." Through case studies, ...
