My So Called Major

  Illustration by JENNY YURSHANSKY/Daily Bruin

By Scott B. Wong
Daily Bruin Staff

Melanie Ho, a fourth-year student, is majoring in a subject the
university probably has never seen the likes of before.

She calls it policy and media studies: a specialized major which
examines how the messages in news and entertainment affect public
opinion.

“I had tried out a lot of different majors ““
poli-sci, psychology, English,” she said. “None of them
were really the right fit.”

“When I found out I could design a major, it seemed like a
perfect way to combine my different interests in a focused
manner,” she continued.

Individual majors allow students in the College of Letters &
Science, who possess an interdisciplinary interest for which no
existing major is adequate, to design their own ““ but it can
be a trying process.

Students applying for an individual major must complete 36 units
with at least a 3.4 GPA and find two tenured faculty sponsors.

“We don’t want to dilute the UCLA experience in
terms of earning a degree,” said Toi Turner, counselor of
College Honors Programs. “It’s not a short-cut in terms
of getting around requirements.”

Because faculty sponsors ““ who approve the student’s
proposal and senior thesis ““ are an extremely limited
resource, the university could not accommodate every student
pursuing an individual major, said G. Jennifer Wilson, assistant
vice provost for honors.

Additionally, the GPA requirement helps control the number of
students admitted, she said.

Finding faculty sponsorship can be difficult, Turner said.

“It’s a courtesy on the professor’s part to
agree to be that student’s mentor,” she said.
“It’s a big campus; folks are busy and tend to have
full plates and to take on a mentorship role to this extent is a
significant responsibility and commitment.”

Still, supportive advisors and faculty sponsors may ease the
transition into the program.

“The old university curriculum cannot accommodate all of
the courses of studies,” said Christopher Mott, an English
professor and one of Ho’s advisors.

“The university needs to trust its students to believe
they are capable of deciding, with guidance, on what is appropriate
for them and their education,” he said.

Mott’s role is to ensure students fulfill their planned
course of action by providing feedback, he said.

Ho’s curriculum consists of five lower division and 18
upper division classes, including those in political science,
English and film.

“There’s always a variety, but I feel that my
classes all come together because my topic is specialized,”
she said.

Ho, who serves as president of Bruin Democrats, said her
political activism also influenced how she arranged her
curriculum.

“My understanding of political culture has definitely been
influenced by practical political experience,” Ho said.

While Ho is an example of an individual majors success story,
there are plenty more who inquire or apply to the program but never
complete it.

Turner receives three to five inquiries about the program per
week, while overall, only five to six students graduate with an
individual major each academic year, she said.

“It’s almost, to some degree, a last resort
opportunity, because with so many majors already accessible, with
so many minors and specializations nowadays, students tend to find
their niche,” Turner said.

Because Ho’s major is unique, she doesn’t have the
leisure of discussing classes with students who share her
curriculum.

“I don’t have peers I can talk to about my major
requirements,” Ho said. “It’s not the same
network of people all the time.”

But some students don’t even get to the hard work
associated with completing the major.

Last year, Andi Gustavson, a third-year American literature and
culture student pursued an individual major hoping to develop a
theory of education to make literature come alive for children
through performing arts.

“I wanted to catch children at a young age and get them
excited about literature and reading through improvisation,”
she said.

But Gustavson soon learned that Individual Majors is not a
cross-college program.

“There are some theater performance classes solely based
on auditions and you can only get in if you’re a theatre
student,” she said.

“I went up the whole chain of command and hit the
top,” Gustavson said. “They said they didn’t have
room for non-theater majors and said they were trying to encourage
a conservatory environment.”

Wilson said she understands why departments, like theater,
restrict classes.

“The department is protecting very limited space for their
students,” Wilson said. “They don’t want to open
up the flood-gates to let everyone in.”

But as an educator, Wilson experienced what she called an
“intellectual sadness” since the university cannot
accommodate the needs of all students.

“It’s sad the way the university is structured
because there are some students who want to take that engineering
class or acting class, but can’t because they’re a
Letters and Science student,” she said.

Still, if a subject garners enough interest from students,
Wilson said she would look into developing the major.

“If we find students are constantly trying to do a major
and that major is not around, for example, Armenian studies, we
would speak to the Department of History about creating that
major,” she said.

Turner said the individual majors program will remain a small
one, catering to the needs of a handful of students, since Letters
and Science already contains a variety of options.

“For those select few who still have some challenges in
that area (Letters and Sciences), we have this path,’ she
said.