Self-Design It!




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  • 2014-11-24 21:04:22
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A recent interview with Dean of Faculty Lucia Miree led to some clarifications regarding the self-designed major and independent study at AUBG. The self-design major has two mandatory courses that must be taken, namely a Junior Capstone and a Senior Thesis. Could you explain why there are two? The self-design major is intended for people to be able to link two to three different fields, hopefully three, in a way that is unique to them. That is why we don’t have templates. The Junior Capstone project is, so that the end of the second year, you would have a point to bring together the different fields. So, it’s to get you to think about what you want to do for your senior project/thesis. Everyone will not want to do a thesis which is why we call it a project. Some people may want to write something and some people will want to do something more theses related. What we are trying to do is have people get organized and ready by their junior year, by doing the first steps, instead of having a project one and two. It’s a warm up for them to integrate the content.  The whole purpose is because in other majors there is supposedly a system called scaffolding, where the courses are related. The junior capstone is to get them to understand the scaffolding of the courses and get them thinking in an integrative way. And depending on the person, what kind of experience it was. But would there be enough courses offered in a given field that you could link together? The reason you have to declare it so far in advance is because we have to look at getting the courses together and you can take up to two independent studies. We are trying to make sure no one is making their own major within a major. It’s the ultimate liberal arts experience. For instance, we’ve had one in political communication. It’s basically politics, journalism and mass communications, and some business administration courses. The person is looking at how to use and design political communication. In the student handbook there is a point in the description: “Working with a discipline-appropriate faculty member, the interested student must develop a proposal for a Self-Designed Major that is intellectually cohesive and does not duplicate other educational learning opportunities available through minors and other majors, singularly or in combination.” So you can’t combine majors or minors? It can’t be a combination of two minors. The basic idea is that you can’t use it to repackage something that is already offered here. For instance we wouldn’t let you take all the JMC minor courses and all the HTY minor courses and call it a history of media thing. It’s not mandatory to have a third field, but it is strongly recommended so that the student can see the links. And we want the independent studies to be more links. Are many people taking the Self-Designed Major? There are 5-6 in process. One student signed the documents and a couple more are coming forward. The idea of most majors is to be able to get a job afterwards. Do you think that the Self-Designed Major is a realistic path to getting a career? It’s not a career focused thing. Although the person taking Political Communication could easily make it a career-oriented thing. They could work for an NGO or a PR firm and be much more specific. When you have a regular major you are taking 36 credits, because you have to have all the knowledge of the field. You are taking a little bit of everything and you only get in depth in a couple of courses.  In this we are hoping students will be able to link it early on and get in depth. Is it a career maker…? I don’t know. Someone was looking to put together a legal studies course, where they would take some law and policy courses. We will not name them the same as a degree from somewhere else. Because in degrees you have more depth, we’re looking at scope. I can see someone interested in history wanting to do something that integrates, but they can’t integrate what they are already taking, they have to include other fields. Switching to independent studies, why is there a limit of two independent studies for the Self-Designed Major? Because you’re not taking real classes to integrate content. The idea was we really had to force people to take existing curriculum and make the linkages. Our degrees are not like European degrees where students study on their own and take exams. What we wanted to do is give some structure to it and not just leave people out there. We want them to have some structured content.

Can faculty from outside of AUBG oversee an independent study? Faculty outside AUBG cannot offer credits and courses. So it's not possible to have a mentor, who is a specialist in the field? It depends on what you put together. A faculty member has to be ultimately responsible for any assignment of credit. An outside person cannot be. But it can be done through a faculty member. Isn't that limiting though? We have a student who is looking to find a faculty member who wants to learn something along with them. The student is doing a MOOC (Massive Online Open Courses). But the student at the same time is doing readings with the professor and writing papers with the professor. So the professor is their linkage to this outside content area. So even if you had a mentor it would have to be through an AUBG faculty member. We are open to different kind of arrangements. We are looking at some structured content by very well- known academic people that people could do and the faculty could learn along with them. Do you have any tips for people that want to take the Self-Designed Major? Speak early on with faculty in at least two different areas. And talk with them on how they see the field. You also need to start early if you are going to do this. Starting later than the sophomore year would be very difficult. I also think that there might be times that you want to take some upper level courses without all the prerequisites. One of the advantages is that you are getting three people on the committee signing off on the program before you start it. And they help you build it. And they agree to the sequence of it. It doesn’t mean you are exempt from the prerequisites. But it does mean that you have different learning outcomes and goals from other people. And it is possible if you have a rationale that a faculty member will allow you to jump some of those....if you are going to take an investing course, but you had never had managerial accounting, but the professor thought it was ok, because you never intended to go on to another one. Then we would work with faculty and see if it is possible. For specific requirements on how to complete a Self-Designed Major and for ideas of possible topics, check out the Undergraduate Catalog.