Normally, individualized majors are are only approved when they propose a course of study that would be impossible to do within the current structure of majors, minors, and electives required of School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) students. Within the existing structure of majors, students are free to specialize while fulfilling the general requirements for an existing, approved SAS major. Appropriate courses in a minor and electives can provide the sought-after multidisciplinary supplementation to the particular focus of the standard major.
Students who wish to design their own individualized majors
in the arts and sciences may make an application in writing to the SAS Vice
Dean for Undergraduate Education. Application forms for the individualized
major can be obtained by special request from the Office of Advising and Academic
Services of the School of Arts and Sciences.
The individualized major should be designed in consultation
with a major faculty adviser from SAS and two additional academic sponsors from
at least two different departments, at least one of which must be another SAS
department. Applications must include a statement of purpose and learning
goals, a proposed program of courses, and the signatures of the three faculty
sponsors. An individualized major must consist of at least 36 credits (twelve 3
credit courses): ordinarily, at least two-thirds of these credits (8 credits) must
be taken in SAS courses; three-quarters (9 credits) must be at the 300 level or
above; and at least one course should be taken as an independent study or
capstone project in the senior year under the direction of the SAS faculty
adviser, for the purpose of integrating the work comprising the major.
Students returning after multiple semesters away may pursue a 54 credit structured, individualizedmajor.
They may write to the SAS Vice Dean for Undergraduate Education for more
information about this return to learn credit-intensive option.
Satisfactory completion of this major leads to a Bachelor of
Arts degree and will appear on the student's transcript simply as
individualized major.
