Self-designed

Self-Designed Majors are intended for disciplined and highly motivated students who are clearly focused in their interests. These majors reflect the College’s recognition that not every student’s area of special interest will always fall neatly within the bounds of a single discipline as traditionally defined.

The Self-Designed Major is not intended as a way for a student to avoid the intellectual focus and methodological rigor required in the normal departmental major or to avoid certain difficult courses within majors. It should not be used to concentrate work in a narrowly pre-professional way. On the contrary, by successfully completing the courses and integrative research project that constitute the Self-Designed Major, the student is expected to achieve a depth of focused reflection and understanding at least comparable to that of a traditional major.

General Guidelines for Proposals:

1. The Self-Designed Major must be a coherent, interdisciplinary approach to an academic topic or area, rather than an accumulation of courses. A brief descriptive title should specify that topic or area.
2. The goal of any Self-Designed Major is the in-depth study of a particular area, rather than an overview of several academic fields. The Self-Designed Major should help students achieve the same degree of expertise or specialization as a conventional major.
3. Reasons for proposing a Self-Designed Major should include intellectual growth and professional goals.
4. The Self-Designed Major should include both introductory and upper-level courses in its constituent departments.

Major Requirements (48 credits):

1. Students proposing a self-designed major must have a grade point average of 3.33 or better.
2. The proposed major program must have a coherent theme or topic that integrates courses from at least two different departments/programs. It must be different enough from a regular major that some combination of major and minor would not substantially achieve
3. The proposed major must include at least forty-eight (48) semester hours (including the senior project) in length, of which twenty-four (24) semester hours must be at the 300 level or above.
4. The proposed major must have a coherent theme or topic that integrates courses from at least two different departments/programs. It must be different enough from a regular major that some combination of major and minor would not substantially achieve the same result. The student must include a rationale for choosing a self-designed major rather than a conventional major.
5. The proposal must include a list of courses, all related to and converging on the theme of the proposed major, from at least two departments/programs.
6. The major must include a one-term, 4-semester-hour independent research project to be completed in the senior year.
7. The major requires three faculty members willing to oversee the major and serve on the senior research project committee. These faculty must represent the departments proposed for the major. The student must select a director from these, who works with the student and the other committee members in preparing the major proposal. Once the proposal has been approved, the director serves as the student’s academic advisor, monitors the student’s progress in completing the major, and chairs the committee which reviews the senior research project.

Approval Process:

The proposal must be submitted to the Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts for approval prior to March 1st of the sophomore year and under unusual circumstances no later than November 15 of the junior year. The Associate Dean then submits the proposal to the Curriculum Committee for final approval. Any amendments must be submitted to the associate dean to approve any changes from the original proposal.