<phomores have officially decided their futures. Well, at least through the next few years. The time for major declaration has passed and so this is a pretty exciting event for the class of 2016, right? Not so for most sophomores. The ritual of deciding a major was surprisingly anticlimactic.
Starting on the Monday of first week, students, who have completed five terms at Carleton went onto the Hub and picked a major. The hub had a simple drop down menu with all of the available majors and all students had to do was pick their future. Many felt underwhelmed by the process. Sophie Glassford said that “there should have been a question afterward asking if you are sure, I mean what if I picked the wrong button.” And this was the sentiment of many of the sophomores. The decision that could affect the futures of the entire class of 2016 only consisted of an unoriginal multiple-choice question asking how we wanted to spend the rest of our undergraduate experience.
To try and remedy the disappointment that many students felt, the administration threw a declaration ice cream float party on Friday between four and six, in an attempt to celebrate the choices that the sophomores had made. However, this was poorly attended and even so the ice cream ran out after the first hour. So what message does this leave Carls with? That the decision we make is not important? That no matter what we are getting a liberal arts degree? It seems strange to many of the students that so little effort was placed on the decision making process for a major, because even though it is certainly possible to choose a different direction later in life, a major does have a large impact on a person’s future.
Many students took it into their own hands in order to try and make the process of declaring more memorable. Veronica Garcia stated “I’m waiting for a special time because I want someone special to to be in the room so I can hug them.” ENTS majors Julia Krumholz, Molly Ellsworth, Joe Hasse, and Jacob Wasserman all gathered together on 2nd week Friday and drank sparkling cider as they made affirmations about why it was they wanted to be ENTS majors. “It was a fun way to celebrate a decision with people that I am most likely going to be spending a lot of time studying with over the next few years” Molly said. This creative idea made the experience more memorable for these sophomores.
Although many people had there major decided long before the deadline, others were struggling to decide up until the last minute, and others even failed to declare before the deadline. Lisa Qui got the dates confused for when the declaration deadline was and actually missed the official registration time. The only penalty for late declaration is a hold on class registration until a major has been declared. Lisa has sorted out her information and is now an official chemistry major.
Declaring seemed to be an ominous process that once completed seemed to be almost trivial in nature. In the long run, what students major in may not affect their career, but it represents an identity that students will carry with them for the rest of their Carleton experience. For statistics on this years major distribution see page 2.