<ast week the class of 2013 declared their majors, with biology, political science and international relations, and economics topping the list.
Biology, Economics, and Political Science are among the departments that typically vie for largest major. However, Psychology, the most popular major among the class of ‘12, fell to number five for the class of ‘13.
It’s too soon to use this round of declarations to extrapolate long term trends in majors, since changing majors even after declaration is not uncommon. Additionally, this data set does not include most double majors or many special majors, which are generally added later, after departmental review.
However, the declarations do shed lights on interesting patterns within departments. Due to the the large number of computer science majors in the class of ‘13 relative to other years, almost 50 percent of the current Computer Science majors are sophomores. A similar spike happened in the Psychology Department when the class of ‘12 declared; approximately half of the current Psychology majors are juniors.
Cognitive Science, which is offered at Carleton as a concentration, was declared as a special major by four sophomores. This puts cognitive science ahead of established major departments, such as music, french and asian studies in number of sophomore majors.
The two newest majors on campus, Linguistics and Environmental Studies, have grown rapidly since their inceptions. Linguistics has roughly doubled its numbers two years in a row, from four majors in ‘11, to fourteen in ‘13. Environmental studies saw a large influx in declarations, with twenty-seven new majors, compared to sixteen in ‘12 and thirteen in ‘11.