Declaring a Major

Some Words about Majors and Life

Majoring is an opportunity to study what you love most and do well - regardless of what you or others think might be "most practical." Whatever your major, through it you will hone your mind and imagination. You'll learn to think and write critically, skeptically, and imaginatively; you'll learn to recognize and address important questions; you'll learn to create and weigh evidence and make decisions about likely truth in the face of incomplete data; you'll confront basic questions about human life and mind; you'll develop your intellectual and aesthetic sensibilities. These skills will stand you in good stead in any career. You'll acquire them more thoroughly and usefully through studying a subject you care about.

The connection between major and career is mysterious. It is certainly not direct. Your major may have some relation to your first job, but not often to a whole career.

Finally, your major doesn't define your character or your life in any important way. It matters a lot what you stand for, whether you commit to a partner and who that partner is, whether you raise children, whether you work for a non-profit or for-profit organization, whether you live in a city or a rural part of the world, whether you work for a large organization or a small one, what you do with your leisure time. What you major in does not matter in any of those fundamentally defining ways.

So follow your mind and your heart in deciding on your major. It may be your last opportunity to indulge yourself so wonderfully.

Procedure

You may apply for admission to a major as soon as you have completed the pre-requisites and are sure about your decision. This can be as early as the end of your first year. Maintaining satisfactory academic progress requires you to obtain admission to a major before you begin your junior year. Consequently, even if you are still completing pre-requisites in the second semester of your sophomore year, you should apply for admission to the major then. In this case the department will delay your formal admission until acceptable grades for those pre-requisites are confirmed. Your first tasks when you return to campus the following semester are to confirm that your application was approved and to meet with your new advisor.

This is how you apply for a major:

• Obtain a copy of your transcript from the advising office in 55 Goldwin Smith Hall, if you do not already have one.
• Transcript in hand, ask in the relevant departmental office about the steps for applying for the major and fill out any required paperwork.
• You may be asked to make an appointment with the director of undergraduate studies (DUS) in your prospective department. Prepare for this appointment by thinking about what you like about your major subject and, if possible, what your focus within it might become.
• If you have developed a rapport with a faculty member in the department, ask that person if s/he is willing to become your advisor before you meet with the DUS. If you have not already found an advisor, the DUS will help you do so.
• Once you have been admitted to the major and have filled out necessary paperwork, your new department will take appropriate steps to inform the college of your acceptance into the major and your new advisor.

If obtaining timely admission to a major is problematic for you in any way, please see your advising dean or the dean of juniors to petition for a delay in entering a major.

Double (or triple) majors

You must complete one major in order to graduate. Completing more than one is an informal process that needs no one's special permission. You simply take the necessary steps outlined above to obtain admission to and an advisor in each major you intend to complete. You may obtain admission to second or third majors during your junior (or even senior) years; but in order to plan how to complete more than one major and to benefit from major advising, it's best to apply for the "extra" majors as soon as you have completed the pre-requisites and are relatively sure you will complete the major.

Many of you think that completing more than one major shows unusual dedication and accomplishment. It may, but only if overall your program is broad and challenging and you do well in it. In deciding whether or not to complete more than one major, consider the following:

• Does double-majoring, especially in closely allied fields, provide several intellectual perspectives on the world?
• Would one major that includes seminars and independent research, along with well-selected electives (perhaps a complementary interdisciplinary concentration), result in a more individual and interesting program of study than full double or triple majors?
• If you simply love more than one subject and cannot bear to choose between or among them, go ahead and declare more than one major. But in the end you need complete only one. As late as your senior year, if you find double- or triple-majoring is more stressful and constraining than exciting and liberating, you can always drop the "second" or "third" major and concentrate on the one that has most captured your intellect.
• If you decide not to complete a second or third major, go to the department and drop the major. If you do not, the department and college will assume you are still in that major and will hold your graduation until it is complete.