Customized majors: when students conceive of, design, and build their own majors, they ask critical questions about education that we often don’t invite them to ask in the course of traditional college. Why is this a field? Where is this field going? How do each of these courses contribute to the overall integrity of the major? Why is this worth studying? Why does this matter, to the student and to the world? When students write their program statements to get their majors approved, they ask fundamental questions that help them see the relevance of even the least appealing (to them) courses in their programs, and gives them a sense of ownership over the journey. This connects to #3 above, and moves students into the driver’s seat right from the start.
This is a very graduate school level of thinking. For me , sport psychology is not offered as an undergraduate course anywhere in the US, but through a customized major like this, it forces us to relate our classes directly to our majors. No other student is forced to do that. A psychology major may know what they want to with a psychology degree, but ultimately they need to go to graduate school and focus in on one specific aspect of psychology. I have been relating every one of my psychology classes towards sport for the last two years, and in my opinion I am very far ahead of the game for when I apply to graduate school.