What’s your major again?” An inebriated frat kid shouts over blaring rap music and tapping of ping-pong balls. Seated on a decrepit floral couch beside a cute brunette, he tries to strike up a conversation. To his surprise, this girl doesn’t want to be a teacher or a nurse; she was never big on history either. She tilts her head. “Oh, just religious studies…kinda,” she says with a half smile. One of them. “I’m special majoring in worldview and apocalypse.” Just like that, she goes from miracles and repentance all the way to Revelations.
He’s hooked.
Decades ago, academic areas of study were inflexible and easily categorized. Now, in a more specialized and multifaceted society, majors such as the science and culture of martial arts, Denmark-design and business, and worldview and apocalypse are becoming more common. Many find that special major and interdisciplinary programs accommodate academic grey areas.
“The special major is an individual academic vision that a student has,” explains John Riszko, a Senior Academic Advisor and Chair of the Special Major Committee at the University at Buffalo. “Through this program, the student is free to build a curricular infrastructure that realizes the ideals of that vision.” By providing an alternative to studies within established departmental boundaries, universities encourage students to get the most out of their academic experience. The option of interdisciplinary studies enables students to fashion something fitting rather than shaping their preferred pursuit to fall neatly into an existing category.
Riszko has worked at the university since 1968 and was present at the inception of UB’s special major program in 1970. He knows the ins and out of the academic tracks offered like the back of his hand. He is a careful speaker, lending a quiet quality to each phrase that escapes his lips. Riszko speaks of the program that he advises with a sort of quiet urgency, speaking as one might if he was stuck in the reference section of a library while trying to explain something momentous. His passion is evident in his expressions. His excitement about the possibilities available to any student willing to build their own degree feels contagious.
Over 2000 students, an average of about 25 per year, have graduated from UB with either a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science degree that they engineered by combining the university’s existing resources and individual courses in unprecedented ways. Students have the freedom to synthesize unique curriculums, utilizing courses offered in departments complementary to their proposed area of study as well as research opportunities, internships, study abroad programs, independent study courses, and transfer credits. In proposing a new area of study, it is necessary for it to be unique in that it varies a considerable amount from any established departmental major. The program was not designed as a way for students to tweak existing academic tracks and degree granting programs to their liking and convenience, but instead, as Riszko explains, to provide “a student that has an idea that cannot be fully satisfied within the contents of a department” with a structured schematic after which to model their studies.
Anne Kurtz, a senior animal science special major at UB, incorporated courses from four different departments to cover the breadth of her studies. Her approved academic track tallies up to a grand total of around 170 credit hours, intermixing courses in the fields of biomedical sciences, environmental studies, anthropology, and psychology. Kurtz is satisfied with the major that she has created for herself despite the amount of work that she has, and will continue to put into her studies. She had originally chosen to double major in both environmental studies and biomedical studies, but learned about the special major program through the University’s Advanced Honors Program.
“Major tracks are very narrow,” she stresses, “It’s more important to strengthen your major based on courses that generally apply to you.” Alongside traditional classroom courses, Kurtz interns at a veterinary clinic, is working on building her research experience, and even traveled solo to South Africa for a dose of firsthand experience using a grant of almost $5000 from The Advanced Honors Program’s Creative Activities and Research Fund. Her trip to South Africa and two-month stay was coordinated through the Environmental Law Institute, an environmental protection center focusing on research, education, and the strengthening of government policies that benefit the environment, worldwide. There, she worked alongside a veterinarian, caring for farm animals and interacting with exotic animals, such as cheetahs and primates. Kurtz was able to apply this trip to her special major as a three-credit independent study course. “It was the best trip of my life, to be honest,” she reflected.
Covering all of her bases, she intends to continue on to graduate school for veterinary studies after completing her undergraduate degree. “More than anything, they’ll want to see that you have outside experience,” Kurtz says of graduate school admissions. She suggests that anyone constructing a special major curriculum model their academic track after the degree requirements of analogous programs at schools that offer a degree in a similar area of study, if available. This strategy will ensure preparedness and pave the way for graduate school success.
According the UB’s “Special Major Advising Manual,” in order to formulate a special major, a student must choose two advisors from the university faculty to sponsor them. These advisors should have knowledge of the students proposed area of study and should be an inextricable part of the student’s proposal and construction of a comprehensive curriculum path.
Once the student fully solidifies their ideas and objectives, they must write a Statement of Intents and Purposes explaining what they would like to do, why they want to do it, and how the intend to carry out their plan utilizing the resources that UB offers. The curriculum must then be designed with a minimum of 36 credit hours, counting no more than three courses twice if a double major is being pursued. The final proposal will be comprised of the main elements of the Statement of Intents and Purposes and the full course curriculum that has been established. The faculty advisors must formally support the proposal in writing before it is submitted to the Chair of the Special Major Committee.
The Special Major Committee meets at least three times per semester and is comprised of five faculty members. These members represent the four undergraduate areas of health sciences, social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities. If the proposal is immediately approved by the committee, it will be sent directly to the Dean for a signature. If it is provisionally approved, the student must revise the proposal before the Chair of the Committee will submit it to the Dean. If the proposal is deferred, it must be modified and resubmitted to the committee. A proposal is rarely rejected, and never without a valid reason. In this case, the student would have to restart the process from the beginning.
While, if devised in the most efficient manner, the program should incorporate independent study experiences, the student should not have more than a quarter of their special major coursework satisfied by independent study or tutorial course credits. “The Special Major Advising Manual” also notes that the best time to submit a special major proposal is during the student’s junior year so that there would be sufficient time to complete necessary coursework. Another obstacle is that the creation of a special major does not necessarily guarantee students placement in classes that are typically limited to declared majors of certain departments. The student must work with the departments that they choose to mix and match courses from in order to achieve the curriculum path that they desire. According to Riszko, “There is no possibility to do special minors” at this time. The program is limited to majors consisting of 36 credit hours or more.
Jason Tracy, a business administration graduate student at UB recalls his undergraduate days as a journalism special major. “If I could do it over again, I would transfer to a school with a journalism program,” he laments. “To get a special degree, it’s an incredibly bureaucratic and slow-moving process.” Tracy had originally intended to be an English major, but soon realized that what he was really after was print journalism. “I just got really into it,” he said. Once he formulated his proposal, he had to resubmit it three times throughout the course of his studies before it was finally approved with the help of his advisors, Andrew Galarneau and Joseph Conte. He chose Galarneau, an adjunct professor and Feature Writer for The Buffalo News, as one of his advisors because he taught his journalism class and had field experience. He chose Conte because he was a favorite teacher of his from the English department. Tracy’s major totaled in at 68 credit hours, most of which were from courses borrowed from the English department, combined with a few from the department of communication. “It wasn’t my advisors; it was just that, in the end, it was all at the whim of the special major board.”
UB senior, Hanna Dobbz, plans on graduating at the end of the semester with a special degree in writing and editing. “The difference between my major and the general English major is the focus on writing over literature,” she explains. “There is no comprehensive writing emphasis at the school.” With UB’s only real offering in this regard being the journalism certificate program, Dobbz decided to create her own major, requiring 54 credit hours. The faculty members that she chose as advisors are Christina Milletti and Dimitri Anastasopolous. She chose them to guide her in her studies because they focus more on writing than literature, unlike most professors in the English department.
All universities in the SUNY school system provide the special major program as an alternative to studies in the established departmental majors. The existence of such a program truly ensures that the New York State school system provides a means of educating students in any area that they choose. “It gives people the opportunity to custom make their major,” Riszko says, “but there is no special major program until the student creates one.”
Not only is the special major program beneficial to the students who create their own majors, but it is beneficial for the university as a changing, growing organism. “The program has served as an incubator for nacent programs,” Riszko says. The university’s dance department and the department of biomedical sciences are just two examples of departments at UB that formed in response to the growing number of students requesting special majors in said areas. In this way, the mere existence of the program provides a system of feedback that is invaluable to the modernity and effectiveness of the curricula offered.
The caliber and scope of the education that a student has received will directly impact their success in the competitive, career world. Academic institutions throughout the world are continually adjusting the programs that they offer to provide students with what they feel is the best possible foundation for future successes. An article from Targeted News Service, published in June 2008, discusses Arizona State University’s new bachelor’s degree program that incorporates elements of science, technology, and human systems. This new approach emphasizes the link between technological and scientific studies and society, government, and organizations. “This type of degree is needed as part of a sound 21st century university education,” says Nicholas Alozie, professor and head of social and behavior sciences at ASU.
Illinois State University has also initiated an interdisciplinary approach to university education within the past decade. An article published in The Pantagraph in 2005 makes note of several interdisciplinary tracks that students have taken. Many have taken part in a wind energy program, incorporating principles of agriculture, technology, and economics to learn about the development of an exceedingly popular renewable energy source. “People are starting to learn that problems are complex, and the discipline boundaries are artificial,” explains Abagail Jahiel, director of Illinois Wesleyan University’s environmental studies program. Another student at ISU studies aspects of neurophysiology, psychology, chemistry, electronics, and computer science in order to compliment his research, studying dopamine’s role in sexual behavior. According to Gary Alexander, Illinois Board of Higher Education deputy director for academic affairs, “In the world we live in, you need convergence…and especially in the sciences, the walls between disciplines are disappearing.”
Ed Brodka, a career counselor at UB, believes that regardless of the type of degree that a student earns, experience outside of the classroom is invaluable. Internships, volunteer work, research participation and initiation, and creating network ties with professionals will give students a leg up in the career world, however, Brodka comments, “If a student has a special major in an area that is very specific and they are competing against other liberal arts majors for a certain position, it may make them stand out.” Riszko seems to share this sentiment, believing that a student’s participation an interdisciplinary program shows initiative. “Employers and graduate schools will be eager to see what you have created” he says. While Brodka feels that it is a definite case-by-case basis, he sees the potential benefits to degree specificity if the student has a definite, direct, career path in mind.
Kurtz thinks that when all is said and done, it’s really about acquainting yourself with the novel, advantageous things that your school has to offer. “My friends laugh sometimes….that I’m an overachiever…and I’m like, ‘I got to go to Africa…for free… I didn’t have to pay for food or gas or anything.’ I’m just doing what I’m doing.” What’s she doing next? Applying to Cornell University for graduate school in veterinary studies.
