The Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS), just like many other schools within UCI, offers minors to prepare students to be well versed in a specialization aside from their major. The ICS program offers minors in digital information systems, health informatics, informatics, information and computer science and statistics. Originally, bioinformatics was on this list. However, on the 2026-27 General UCI catalogue, the note “This program is currently not admitting students,” is now above the minor description.
The bioinformatics minor focused on teaching students how to apply computing skills to biomedical problems and data. According to the Department of Informatics, students with this minor learned how to combine computer science, math and biological sciences together in practical applications. Along with analyzing biomedical problems from a programmer’s perspective, it embeds the principles, technologies and methods used to process biological data, highlighting how technology and life sciences impact one another.
For students who have already taken a majority of classes to fulfill this minor, this could be a significant inconvenience. However, the time and effort spent to obtain this credential might still lead to a completed bioinformatics minor. For a chance to still receive the minor students can fill out the General Undergraduate Petition. One of the petition requests is for a course substitution. In this scenario, any remaining requirements students had for this minor could potentially be substituted with other courses.
While filling out this petition, there are some regulations to be aware of such as students only being able to fill out one per quarter. Along with the processing time which is estimated to be from 2-3 weeks, according to ICS Forms and Petitions.
For those who were interested in what the bioinformatics minor had to offer, information and computer science, statistics, and health informatics minors currently being offered are very similar.
An information and computer science minor provides strong fundamental knowledge of computer programming, software systems, databases, algorithms and more. Although the bioinformatics minor was considered flexible, this minor mandates programming throughout courses. While statistics doesn’t include the medical aspect it does give students an efficient background in mathematics and computing, which were two of the main components of the no longer offered bioinformatics minor. Lastly, health informatics would tie into healthcare as it teaches the capacities of information technology. This knowledge of information technology is then typically applied to doctor’s offices, home care and hospitals.
There is no specific reasoning for this removal given by UCI publicly. Although the removal of majors and minors isn’t an uncommon occurrence at UCI, every time it still leaves students with specific goals impacted.
Abrianna Catanzarite is a News intern for the fall 2026 quarter. She can be reached at catanzar@uci.edu
Edited by Konstantin Diatlov and Tracy Sandoval.
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