Members of the Class of 2013 recently made decisions that were far from sophomoric. With the March 10 deadline for major declarations having come and gone, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Jim Higginbotham said there were a "couple of interesting trends" in the non-binding choices made by this year's sophomore class.
Though most students declared majors in the disciplines that historically prove most popular—government and legal studies, economics, history, environmental studies, mathematics, English, biology and psychology—Higginbotham noted that the increased declarations in the computer science (CS) and mathematics departments were "very interesting."
Seventy-four sophomores declared a major in government and legal studies, 68 in economics, 42 in history, 39 in environmental studies, 38 in mathematics, 30 in English, 28 in biology, 24 in psychology and 24 in sociology. Excluding mathematics and biology, the popularity of these majors in the Class of 2013 match with the most popular majors within the current senior and junior classes. In addition, no department was left without a declared sophomore major.
The increased interest of students majoring in CS and mathematics "speaks to the excitement around those areas" of study, said Higginbotham.
Fifteen sophomores declared a major in CS, more than twice the number of students currently declared in the junior and senior classes. Currently, there are seven CS majors in the Class of 2012 and four in the Class of 2011. All statistics are current as of Wednesday, March 30.
According to Higginbotham, the 38 sophomores to declare a mathematics major mark a "pretty notable" increase from the 19 junior and 24 senior majors.
Sandra Martinez '13 finally decided on a mathematics major after considering a few other options including biochemistry, which she dropped after deciding not to complete a pre-med course of study.
"I was going a little crazy with all the science classes," Martinez said. She decided on mathematics after reflecting on her academic passions and strengths and elected to take what she described as a "practical major."
Higginbotham found the figure of only 28 sophomores declaring a biology major "strikingly low." There are 46 biology majors in the junior class and 60 in the senior class.
As of last night, 36 sophomores—out of a class of 483 students—had yet to declare their majors due to a variety of reasons, according to Higginbotham. He said that those remaining students' decisions "tend to trickle in between now and the fall semester."
When explaining that the numbers of majors in some disciplines increases during a classes junior and senior years, Higginbotham made an example of the language departments. The French department, for instance, gained only six majors from the sophomore class, while there are currently 20 junior and 17 senior majors.
Eighty-seven sophomores declared a double major, which Higginbotham characterized as a typical amount.
Economics and finance, the College's newest minor, is apparently taking some time to gain in popularity. No sophomores chose to declare the minor, which was introduced during the 2009-2010 academic year and is housed within the economics department. No juniors or seniors have declared the minor either, and only one member of the Class of 2010 graduated with the minor thus far.
Higginbotham said that the courses that make up the economics and finance minor are typically very popular and that, generally speaking, the numbers of majors and minors within a departments do not necessarily accurately reflect the popularity of the discipline. For example, the gay and lesbian studies program does not attract a very high number of minors—a major is not available—but the class enrollments in the department's courses still tend to be quite high.