Every year, about two students graduate with a major of their own design.
While many express an interest in an individualized major, few projects come to fruition.
Individualized Major Chairwoman Alice Kelley says that the program is designed for "a student who has some interesting intellectual question that needs to be addressed from many different disciplinary directions."
"This is not what I call the shopping-cart major, where you run through the aisles with your basket and you take English courses and some art courses. There needs to be some unifying intellectual principle that combines all of these particular courses," Kelley says.
College junior Cynthia Ntini, who is working on an individualized major in international development, relishes the variety that the program affords her.
"There are less requirements, and I have been taking more courses around the University. I have taken some grad courses, city planning courses, courses in the [Fels Institute of Government], anthropology, economics, political science, history and women's studies" courses, Ntini says, adding that while her thesis will relate to Africa, she has yet to refine the project.
She became interested in declaring an individualized major in her sophomore year, because she "really couldn't figure out what [she] wanted to do."
Students come to Kelley to propose possible major topics and then work with her to refine their intellectual interests and design a proposal for their major.
While many students come to Kelley interested in declaring a major, Kelley asserts that only two or three students usually graduate with an individualized major in any given year.
One of the reasons for this is that Penn's diversity of majors and programs allows students to work within existing majors to pursue their interests, according to Kelley.
"When students come to talk to me about their ideas for individualized majors, it is not uncommon that I can point them to a major that already exists that has a concentration or a flexibility that will allow them to do what they already thought would be needed," Kelley says.
Additionally, Kelley points to the difficulty and effort involved in designing an individualized major.
"It takes an enormous amount of individual, independent work, and it can get to be pretty daunting if you don't know what you are doing," Kelley says.
She adds that students sometimes are interested in projects that the University's offerings can't support.
"There are students that come in with wonderful ideas for individualized majors that don't work at Penn, because we don't offer enough courses to answer the question that they have," Kelley says.
For those students who do make it through their initial exploration with Kelley, the next step is to plan their individualized major.
After completing a proposal, which includes a "list of courses, and why they are relevant, a statement about why it can't be done within the structure of a normal major and a statement of what they plan on doing for their thesis project," their proposals are sent to a committee of faculty members, according to Biology professor and Committee on Individualized Study member Peter Petraitis.
Refining and designing a major "is pretty difficult and challenging, but I was really determined and I really wanted to do it," Ntini says.
Students must have a minimum 3.5 GPA and must have already declared an existing major in order to propose an individualized major. While students may later drop their departmental major, they must graduate with at least a recognized departmental minor. Additionally, students must complete a thesis before graduating.
For Ntini, the process is worth it.
"It is really satisfying ... doing what I really want to do."
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