PrintIt’s that time of year again. Sophomores are choosing their majors, juniors are questioning their majors, and first-years are realizing that they actually need majors to graduate. Most students choose to stick with well-known tracks like English, chemistry, or economics. Others take different routes. The five students interviewed here chose less popular majors. Some are choices students have never heard of. Others, while better known, are often considered too narrow to be applicable in the “real world.” Prepare to be surprised. Before choosing your major, check out these options and expand your horizons. If you’re already set on another path, read them anyhow—they may offer you the career opportunity you never saw coming. Trust us—you’ll be glad you did.
If you like sociology but want to narrow your focus, consider Urban Studies.
Ben Kurland, CC ‘11
How do you see your major?
As a way to deal with political, economic, and social issues that arise in cities—how to understand the problems that arise from it, and the trends that form, and why they do.
Why urban studies?
Well, I come from Cleveland, and we have a fair share of urban problems... I thought I could pursue a career dealing with it. The beauty of urban studies is that it’s such a wide field. You can focus on economics, or sociology, or whatever you’re into, all within these cities.
What some of the advantages you’ve discovered?
It’s a pretty tiny major, so you get to know the head of the departments. And you have the same people in your classes, so you can build strong relationships and work together.
What are your plans for the future?
I’d like to do urban planning, specifically, transportation planning, and this is helping me build up a history in the subject. I can learn about all the movements and different political issues. I want to eventually work in city hall, and this allows me to really think across the board.
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If you can’t get enough of the Humanities, consider Comparative Literature and Society.*
Megan Eardley, CC ‘10
How do you see your major?
Comparative literature and society is a major for students that want to critically study a “big idea” and challenge the logic and history of linguistic, national, and disciplinary borders. For me, it means the ability to study relationships between nationalism and nation-building—to try to understand how and why people imagine, assign, and re-imagine the nation-state.
Why comparative literature and society?
Comparative literature offers far greater freedom than any other major in the humanities, I think, for students to plan intensive research on a specific question. I’ve found that in choosing courses on a specific theme rather than methodology, I’m learning many different ways of approaching a problem.
What are some advantages you’ve discovered?
It forces students at Columbia to work across at least two languages other than English. There are few better ways to learn a new way to think than to learn a whole new way to communicate. I’m seriously terrible with languages, but I find this part of the major invaluable. The commitment to multiple languages makes comparative literature a unique challenge. I am also finishing my major requirements in Portuguese in warm, happy Lisbon, while New York freezes through February this year.
*Only for CC students. Barnard students should check out BC's Comparative Literature program.
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If you want to keep your options open and are committed to studying abroad, consider Foreign Area Studies.
Colleen Dunning CC ’09
How do you see your major?
It leaves everything as open as it could possibly be. I’m studying with the history department, but also with French, literature, political science, and sociology. Focusing on the French-speaking world, I’m looking at colonialism—its impact and representations. I see my major as a way to focus on the many implications of change in society, and their reflections in cultural production.
Why foreign area studies?
I am drawn to the techniques used in history, the analytical approach, but I wanted to be able to draw on all of these other fields and theories. For example, I’m using the historical field of the history of memory to get a more concrete analysis of literature, bringing experience and expression into a historical-social context.
What are some advantages you’ve discovered?
I have the ability to use a whole range of classes, professors, departments and ideas to complete my course work. That, and the fact that when anyone asks me what I’m majoring in I can respond with “How to colonize people.” Also, I can spend an entire year writing a thesis about an alcoholic writer, as crazy as they come, who lived through colonialism in Asia, WWII, the Resistance, Mai ’68, and the rest of the ridiculous events of the 20th century.
What are your plans for the future?
I’ve been working in the business side of the arts world for a while now. I have a radio program interviewing artists, directors and creative types. So among many weird jobs—aquarium tour guide, sailor, genetic data analyst— I’ll probably take this cultural/social business into something in publishing, media, or the arts world. Right now I’m working at Christie’s, learning how to strategically market expensive art to a hesitant world.
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If you’d like to combine activism with academia, consider Women’s Studies.*
Alison Bilderback BC ’11
How do you see your major?
Our goal, I would argue, is to ultimately eliminate our own program: we want to reach a point at which women are so integrated into the core curriculum of study that it is no longer necessary to have a department which seeks to specifically remind students that equality between the sexes does not yet exist. ... Women’s studies definitely focuses on a critical way of thinking which pushes students to examine the world around us, to notice little things that we might have otherwise taken for granted. It’s about questioning the everyday gender roles we’re exposed to and wondering if there just might be something wrong with these prescripted behaviors.
Why women’s studies?
I was so excited to be doing reading that actually interested me. A lot of the injustices of daily life that I had never before thought about were pointed out to me in this class. [Also] women’s studies is almost inextricably linked to gay and lesbian studies and the newly emerging queer studies. The feminisms of the late ’60s and early ’70s, such as liberal, cultural, and radical feminisms, gave birth to what, in history texts, is called “lesbian feminism.” Self-identified academic feminists have provided important written material for the queer community.
What are some advantages you’ve discovered?
We have very few, but very dedicated, professors in the departent. Also, there are only 10 to 15 majors per year. I’ve found that I get a lot of personal attention that I might not in a larger department. ... I’ve asked my Feminists Texts II professor, Lisa Tiersten, for advice about my political actions. Torn between what was right according to the academic theory I had been reading and things my peers and their friends had been saying or doing, she convinced me that perhaps this battle was too big for me. She promised me that one day people would listen to what I had to say... I think she saved me from a lot of inner turmoil.
What are your plans for the future?
It really depends on the day that you ask me. If I’ve just been to the Guggenheim or the Brooklyn Museum, I want to be an art curator, focusing specifically on art informed by feminisms. Other days, I want to go into law. I know that Columbia Law has a program that focuses on gender and sexuality and this very much intrigues me. It’s the only one like it in the country. I get so impassioned about the political battles facing women as well as the queer community... It’s things like these that the women’s studies program hopes to point out.
* Only for Barnard students. CC students should check out Women's and Gender Studies.
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If you’re torn between the sciences, consider Environmental Biology.
Umar Agha, CC ’11
How do you see your major?
It allows you to focus your study on anything from microbes and animals to the entire ecosystem as a whole—it gives you that flexibility. Generally speaking, I’ve decided to focus my classes on general ecosystem health—topics like ecotoxicology and biodiversity conservation. I’m also doing a sustainable development concentration and taking a bunch of classes on the various aspects of alternative, “clean” energy. So, when you combine the two, it’s about the environmental impacts of energy acquisition and consumption, and, ultimately, the quest to find more environmentally friendly forms of renewable energy.
Why environmental biology?
I was initially into environmental biology because I wanted to work with animals— especially after having spent a summer working to improve the Lahore Zoo in Pakistan. With my experiences dealing with the resident big cats at the zoo, I was compelled to make a career out of ensuring that such creatures roamed free. It was also a pretty big rush to work with such awesome predators. Eventually, though, I got more into environmental management—instead of strictly wildlife management—and got interested in alternative energy. So, I stuck to the environmental biology major, with a few adjustments in the classes I was going to take to fulfill requirements—zoomed out from more animal-related classes to classes focusing on ecosystem health—and added the sustainable development concentration.
What are some advantages you’ve discovered?
The department that offers the major (E3B) is fantastic. The Center for Environmental Research and Conservation at Columbia is a consortium including our university, the New York Museum of Natural History, New York Botanical Garden, Wildlife Conservation Society and Wildlife Trust. So, you have access to faculty from all these world-class institutions—you can take one of their classes or express interest in their research areas. The major also includes a senior thesis; over the junior-senior summer, students conduct independent research guided by an experienced scientist. Columbia provides the grant to every environmental bio major, so it’s a big advantage. You graduate having completed in-depth independent research under the mentorship of a renowned scientist. Lastly, all of the classes I have picked for my sustainable development concentration complement the classes I’m taking for my major. As I mentioned earlier, it’s a good combination of alternative energy and environmental impacts—because, even in practice, you can’t separate the two. So, it’s really working out well!
What are your plans for the future?
Career possibilities for environmental biology majors stretch from working at zoos to conducting environmental impact assessments for (environmental) consultancy firms. With the specific classes I’m taking for both my major and concentration, the biggest market is definitely energy companies, both alternative and “conventional.” For example, even the big oil companies are now pretty serious about the environmental impacts of their doings. They need people to make such assessments, as well as work on cleaner energies. There are also alternative energy companies, which usually provide solar, wind, hydro and/or bio-related energy. They, too, are pretty concerned about their “ecological footprint.”