...............................................................................................................................................................
...............................................................................................................................................................
|
Build-Your-Own Majors In the first semester of her sophomore year at Smith, Christina Jimenez '98 became intrigued by the architectural development of cities and the way urban surroundings influence people and their relationships. For three semesters she took every course she could on urban issues and wavered between majoring in sociology and history. Her problem: neither major seemed to sufficiently address her special interests. Her solution: she designed her own. In the spring of her sophomore year, Jimenez won approval to design and declare a major in urban studies. The approval came from the Subcommittee on Honors and Independent Majors (SHIP), a division of the former Committee on Academic Policy that oversees the self-designed major program. "I created my urban studies major because I felt it would really allow me to combine my interests in urban development, history and architecture," recalled Jimenez last spring. Since graduating, she has put her urban studies degree to work as a caseworker in Manhattan's Talbot Perkins Children's Services, a foster-care agency. Jimenez says her self-designed major, with its curriculum combining history, sociology, law and social-work courses, has served her well in dealing with a variety of urban constituencies. "I'm very able to see what I read about in the books," she says. "What I studied, I'm definitely using in my job." Her solution is one chosen each year by a handful of Smithies. Some of them have strong interests in two or three areas. Others, like Valerie Briggs of New Orleans, have specific interests in fields that don't exist as established majors. Briggs graduated last year with a degree in environmental policy that combined courses from environmental science and public policy. "I've wanted to be an environmental attorney since I was a teenager," said Briggs, who currently studies environmental law at Tulane University in New Orleans. "But there was no major available that provided me with the environmental science background and the policy and government background I needed." Nicole Bland of Trinidad said she designed her own major because "I knew I wanted to study 'pop' culture, but Smith's pop-culture array is rather weak." By combining courses from the film and sociology departments, Bland put together a major in "Society and the Moving Image." Last year, 22 students designed their own majors. This year there are 14. Most of them are in East Asian studies, a program that exists at Smith only as a minor. But some create specific majors such as cultural geography and comparative linguistics. The student-designed interdepartmental major has been around since the early 1970s, when the former Committee on Educational Policy first allowed students to devise their own curricula. Senior-class dean Donald Reutener, who chairs SHIP and has been at Smith since 1969, remembers when some students began constructing curricula that combined biology and psychology courses. That combination has since become a popular major in neuroscience. "The student-designed major has been around for a long time," Reutener said. Helen Searing, Alice Pratt Brown Professor of Art, has advised three students with self-designed majors, including Jimenez. She sees the independent major as the perfect alternative for some students with diverse scholarly interests. "I'm in favor of the independent major," she said, "because I'm in favor of taking as many courses across the curriculum as possible. I think there will always be people for whom the independent major will be the ideal." In order to qualify her self-designed major, a student must submit a detailed proposal to SHIP no later than the end of her junior year, Reutener said. It must define the subject of the major and explain why it can't be explored within an existing program. It must include a proposed curriculum with an explanation of how each course relates to the major. The student must also supply supporting letters and recommendations from advisers from each department involved. "It's a process that makes students take responsibility for something they feel strongly about-strongly enough to build a convincing proposal," Reutener said. "What's the major theme that will run through this proposal? What will this mean?" Despite the paperwork and bureaucracy to which independent majors are subjected, some say they value the proposal process. "The experience of actually creating my major was very good for me," said Jimenez. "It forced me to evaluate on my own terms what is important to me intellectually, what I wanted to get out of my experience at Smith. And it forced me to push myself academically." Enthusiastic as some students are about designing their own majors, they're quick to point out that it's not for everyone. "This is not a quick-fix way to declare a major," says East Asian studies major Ilana Tavan '00, of Newton, Massachusetts. "You must be determined to do it. There are lots of forms to fill out and people who will try to persuade you to take a conventional major." Then there's the loneliness that comes from not belonging to an established department. "It's very hard when there is no specific department to feel a part of," said Jimenez. "While I worked hard at Smith and did pretty well, I was not top in any class and felt very insecure about my academic ability." "I missed out on that bonding and support atmosphere because of the fact that I was not a member of any one department," echoed Briggs. For some students, a self-designed major is the perfect vehicle for "synthesizing ideas across a wide array of disciplines," said Searing. But she emphasizes that, given the difficulties inherent in designing one's own major, those who do so must believe in what they're doing. "The independent major has to be very bright," she noted. "She has to be daring, to take risks and explore imaginative ways of thinking. I think passion is very important." |
..............................................................................................................................................................
NewsSmith
is published by the Smith College Office of College Relations
for alumnae, staff, students and friends.
Copyright © 1998, Smith College. Portions of this publication
may be reproduced with the permission of the Office
of College Relations, Garrison Hall, Smith College, Northampton,
Massachusetts 01063. Last update: 4/26/99.
Made
with Macintosh
