Nursing is a science major. The standard undergraduate nursing degree is a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), and the curriculum is built on a foundation of biology, chemistry, and microbiology. At most universities, science coursework makes up the majority of required credits, and the clinical practice itself follows a structured scientific method.
The BSN Is a Bachelor of Science Degree
The official degree designation tells the story. A nursing graduate earns a Bachelor of Science, not a Bachelor of Arts. At California State University, Los Angeles, for example, the BSN requires 120 total units, with 88 to 105 of those units falling within the major. That means roughly 73 to 88 percent of the degree is nursing and science content rather than general liberal arts coursework.
This pattern holds across universities nationally. The BSN sits within schools of science or health sciences at most institutions, and its accreditation standards require a heavy concentration in the biological and physical sciences before students ever enter clinical rotations.
Science Prerequisites Are Extensive
Before getting into upper-level nursing courses, students must complete a demanding set of science prerequisites. These typically include:
- Human anatomy
- Human physiology
- Microbiology (often with a lab component)
- Chemistry with lab
- Statistics or quantitative reasoning
- Nutrition
The standards for these courses are strict. NYU’s College of Nursing requires a C or better in every prerequisite, and all science courses must have been completed within 10 years of enrollment. Chemistry courses designed for non-science majors are typically not accepted. The required chemistry must cover atomic structure, chemical bonding, energy, and states of matter, the same content expected of other science majors. This isn’t a watered-down version of the sciences. Nursing students sit in the same anatomy and physiology lectures as pre-med and pre-dental students at many schools.
Is Nursing Considered STEM?
This is where it gets slightly more complicated. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security maintains an official STEM Designated Degree Program List, and it does include select programs under the Health Professions category (CIP series 51). However, not all nursing degrees carry a formal STEM designation in the way that engineering, computer science, or biology degrees do. The distinction matters primarily for international students on OPT visas, who receive extended work authorization with a STEM-designated degree.
That said, the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), part of the National Institutes of Health, funds nursing science research across priority areas like disease prevention, health optimization, and care systems. The existence of a dedicated NIH institute for nursing research underscores that the federal government treats nursing as a scientific discipline worthy of the same research infrastructure given to other biomedical fields.
Nursing Practice Follows the Scientific Method
The connection to science goes beyond coursework. The nursing process that every practicing nurse uses is a direct adaptation of the scientific method. A nurse begins by asking what a patient needs, then assesses the patient’s current status (gathering data), develops nursing diagnoses (forming hypotheses), designs a care plan (creating methodology), implements that plan (testing), and evaluates outcomes (analyzing results). If the outcomes don’t match the goals, the nurse reassesses and starts again.
One key difference from the traditional scientific method: nursing’s version is more iterative. Patients change constantly, so nurses cycle through these steps in a fluid, nonlinear way rather than following a rigid sequence. But the underlying logic, forming evidence-based conclusions and adjusting them based on observed results, is the same reasoning process that drives any scientific discipline. A published analysis in the National Library of Medicine described this framework as “crucial to professional nursing practice,” noting that nurses who don’t employ it are not practicing professional nursing care.
Graduate Nursing Degrees and Research
At the graduate level, nursing splits into two doctoral paths that further illustrate its dual identity as both a science and a clinical profession. The PhD in Nursing is a research doctorate. Students conduct original scientific research, develop theory, and publish findings, much like a PhD in any other science. Graduates of these programs are called “nurse scientists” and typically work in academic research or leadership roles.
The Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) is a practice doctorate. DNP students learn to translate existing research into clinical application, lead healthcare organizations, and complete scholarly projects focused on quality improvement or policy. Both paths require rigorous engagement with scientific evidence, but the PhD emphasizes generating new knowledge while the DNP emphasizes applying it.
How Nursing Compares to Other Science Majors
If you’re trying to decide whether nursing “counts” for purposes like graduate school prerequisites, scholarship eligibility, or your own sense of academic rigor, the answer is clear. Nursing requires the same foundational science courses as pre-med tracks, awards a Bachelor of Science degree, applies the scientific method as its core professional framework, and has a federally funded research institute. It is more applied than a pure biology or chemistry degree, meaning you spend significant time learning clinical skills alongside scientific theory. But that applied focus doesn’t make it less scientific; it makes it an applied science, similar to how engineering applies physics or how public health applies epidemiology.
The distinction that sometimes creates confusion is between “science major” and “traditional science major.” Nursing is not a bench science where you spend four years in a research lab. It is a health science that integrates biological, chemical, and behavioral science into direct patient care. For most practical purposes, from transcript evaluation to career classification, it is categorized and treated as a science degree.