The botany major requires a core of courses that provides a strong foundation in biology. Beyond this core, electives allow students to focus their major on basic aspects of field or laboratory botany, on the use of plants in landscape design, or to participate in the certificate program in the Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment.

In 1917 botanist Caroline Black accepted a position to teach at Connecticut College on the condition that botany would be a separate department from biology. This decision created a focus on plant science that is, to this day, a hallmark of the College.