Academic major

Anacademic majoris theacademic disciplineto which anundergraduate studentformally commits. A student who successfully completes all courses required for the major qualifies for anundergraduate degree.The wordmajor(also calledconcentration,particularly at private colleges) is also sometimes used administratively to refer to the academic discipline pursued by agraduate studentorpostgraduate studentin amaster'sordoctoralprogram.

An academic major typically involves completion of a combination of required and elective courses in the chosen discipline. The latitude a student has in choosing courses varies from program to program.An academic major is administered by select faculty in anacademic department.A major administered by more than one academic department is called aninterdisciplinary major.In some settings, students may be permitted to design their own major, subject to faculty approval.

In the United States, students are usually not required to choose their major discipline when first enrolling as an undergraduate. In addition, most colleges and universities require that all students take a generalcore curriculumin theliberal arts.Normally students are required to commit by the end of their secondacademic yearat latest, and some schools even disallow students from declaring a major until this time. A student who declares two academic majors is said to have adouble major.Acoordinate majoris an ancillary major designed to complement the primary one. A coordinate major requires fewercourse creditsto complete. Many colleges also allow students to declare aminorfield, a secondary discipline in which they also take a substantial number of classes, but not so many as would be necessary to complete a major.

History

The roots of the academic major as we now know it first surfaced in the 19th century as "alternative components of the undergraduate degree".Before that, all students receiving anundergraduate degreewould be required to study the same slate of courses geared at a comprehensive "liberal education".

In 1825, theUniversity of Virginiainitiated an educational approach that would allow students to choose from an area of focus. Offering eight options (which included ancient languages, anatomy, medicine), other higher educational systems in Europe began to develop into a stricter specialization approach to studies after the American Civil War.

In the United States, in the second half of the 19th century, concentrated foci at the undergraduate level began to prosper and popularize, but the familiar term "major" did not appear until 1877 in aJohns Hopkins Universitycatalogue. The major generally required 2 years of study, while the minor required one.

From 1880 to 1910,Baccalaureategranting American institutions vastly embraced a free-elective system, where students were endowed with a greater freedom to explore intellectual curiosities.

The 1930s witnessed the appearance of first interdisciplinary major:American studies.Culture was the grounding concept and orchestrating principle for its courses. 1960s to 1970s experienced a new tide of interdisciplinary majors and a relaxation of curriculum and graduation requirements. (Civil Rights MovementspawnedWomen's studiesandBlack Studies,for example.) In the 1980s and 1990s, "interdisciplinary studies,multiculturalism,feminist pedagogy,and a renewed concern for the coherence and direction of theundergraduateprogram began to assail the Baccalaureate degree dominated by the academic major. "

Major's significance

The academic major is considered a defining and dominant characteristic of theundergraduate degree."The ascendancy of the disciplines in the late nineteenth century and their continuing dominance throughout the twentieth century have left an indelible imprint on the shape and direction of the academic major" and research affirms that the academic major is the strongest and clearest curricular link to gains in student learning.While general education is considered to be the breadth component of an undergraduate education, the major is commonly deemed the depth aspect.Choice of major has a significant impact on employment prospects and lifetime earnings.

Discourse and disagreement

Through its development, scholars, academics, and educators have disagreed on the purpose and nature of the undergraduate major. Generally, proponents of the major anddepartmental system"argue that they enable an academic community to foster the development, conservation and diffusion of knowledge." In contrast, critics "claim that they promote intellectual tribalism, wherespecializationreceives favor over the mastery of multipleepistemologies,where broader values of liberal learning and of campus unity are lost, and where innovation is inhibited due to parochial opposition to new sub-specialties and research methods. "

Difference from academic concentration

In many universities, anacademic concentrationis a focus within a specific academic major, that is a field of study within a specific academic major. For example, interdisciplinary programs in humanities or social sciences will require a student to pick a specific academic concentration as a focus within their academic major, such as an academic major in Interdisciplinary Humanities with an academic concentration in Film or an academic major in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences with an academic concentration in Geography. At severalart schoolsandliberal arts colleges,an academic concentration serves a similar function to anacademic minorat other universities, that is an academic discipline outside of the student's academic major in which they take a number of classes. AtBrown UniversityandHarvard University,however, the term "concentration" refers simply to the major field.

At thedoctoralstudies level, an academic major or major field refers to a student's primary focus within their degree program while a minor or minor field refers to their secondary focus. For example, a doctoral student studying history might pursue their degree in history with a major field in war and society and a minor field in postcolonial studies.

Impacted majors

An impacted major is a major for which more students apply for than the school can accommodate, a classic example of demand exceeding supply. When that occurs, the major becomes "impacted" and so is susceptible to higher standards of admission.

For example, suppose that a school has minimum requirements areSATsof 1100 and aGPAof 3.0. If a person applies to an impacted major, the school can raise the minimum requirements as much as needed to weed out the students that it is unable to accommodate. Because of this, some students may opt to apply to a school as "Undeclared". If in the above example the school implements requirements of SATs of 1300 and a GPA of 3.4 for the impacted major, a student may find it better to apply as "Undeclared" if they meet only the minimum requirements. However, many universities, such as theUniversity of California, Berkeley,may in turn present more difficult requirements (such as a GPA requirement in certain prerequisite classes) to enter an impacted major even once accepted to the university overall.

See also

• Academia
• Academic minor
• British undergraduate degree classification
• Curriculum
• Double degree
• Higher education
• Joint honours degree

Further reading

• Cano, J. (1999). "The Relationship Between Learning Style, Academic Major, and Academic Performance of College Students".Journal of Agricultural Education.40:30–37.doi:10.5032/jae.1999.01030.
• Galotti, K. M. (1999). "Making a" major "real-life decision: College students choosing an academic major".Journal of Educational Psychology.91(2): 379–387.doi:10.1037/0022-0663.91.2.379.
• Simpson, J. C. (2003). "Mom matters: Maternal influence on the choice of academic major".Sex Roles.48(9/10): 447–460.doi:10.1023/A:1023530612699.S2CID141153925.

External links

• Index of college majorsatThe Princeton Review
• College major profileatThe College Board