Christina Domenico | Generating majors for a new generation

Last week, the Columbia Spectator wrote about the college's plan to add a sustainable-development major for fall 2010. Cited as "trans-disciplinary," the major would encompass multiple topics and include a fieldwork component.

This degree program - which sounds like old-school environmental studies on steroids - will be the undergraduate arm within the school's Earth Institute, which works to "help achieve sustainable development primarily by expanding the world's understanding of Earth as one integrated system," according to its Web site. But as the article mentions, Columbia's decision to create this new major is based partly on the high demand for sustainable practices.

The times are a-changin', folks. Higher education is undergoing a cultural upheaval as technological and social changes occur at an increasingly rapid rate, and it's rocking the traditional core of universities. Sending students through specialized degree programs doesn't undermine the mission of a university - it expands the breadth of offerings that form a school's community. But at the same time, universities will, at the end of the day, always rely on the basics to get the job done.

A major like sustainable development is a departure from the canonical design of liberal-arts curricula. Rather than engaging students to intellectually devote themselves to timeless topics such as economics, English or history, majors such as sustainable development focus on the here and now.

Majors designed around demand is nothing new to the university scene. When computers began to cover every inch of working space, computer-science programs popped up, their graduates coveted by any company that works electronically. As the U.S.'s intervention in the Middle East heated up, so did programs in Arabic studies. We've seen Wharton draw up plans for a sports-management concentration, because specialized management is becoming vital for teams to survive.

And meanwhile, the humanities have taken a hit for not preparing students for specific paths.

As yesterday's DP article pointed out, the value of a humanities education is challenged by majors that provide more actionable skill sets, such as business or the hard sciences. If you're a regular reader of this page, you've undoubtedly read numerous defenses of the liberal-arts degree over the years - I certainly have. Still, the issue has never been laid to rest, so I'll take a stab at it.

What is a major, after all? Common sense and practice demonstrate that undergraduate study doesn't pigeonhole a graduate into particular career fields. English majors go into consulting and finance; business students may pursue writing as well. Liberal-arts students have always found ways to apply thinking and analytical skills to unrelated career fields. Many students (myself included) stumble into their majors, just as they may later find that serendipity landed their career.

Of course there's still value in the liberal arts - just ones that don't directly translate into a list of job responsibilities and duties. It's work ethic, flexibility, thoughtfulness or my favorite, attention to details. These are all important qualities that students gain over four years of undergraduate study, in any field, from economics to classics.

But it seems that undergraduate education is moving into a more practical realm. According to The Princeton Review, the 10 most popular majors include business administration, education, computer science and nursing. English is still on that list, though, as is the difficult-to-categorize communications - scholars can't even agree on where it fits in yet.

The list shows that students want a defined skill set. And with more students nationwide flocking to degrees that will train them for certain careers, fewer find themselves in classes that look backwards in time. There's not a problem with the liberal arts per se, but people want a more modern education that focuses on solving current problems.

But the humanities have formed the core of universities since their inception. Many new programs rely on the humanities to exist anyway. Sustainable development at Columbia, for example, will draw on anthropology. Without the core departments of study, there would be no way to grow and keep up to date with the world.

Who knows what universities and their majors will look like in 10 or 20 years. Sustainable development may become the predecessor to the next big thing. In any case, higher education is going to grow - out of the humanities and into more defined, current fields.

Christina Domenico is a College senior from North Wildwood, N.J. The Undersized Undergrad appears on Tuesdays. Her email address is domenico@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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