Individualized Programs

Courses about the nature of interdisciplinarity and the interdisciplinary research process can provide a core to these self-designed programs. If possible, some sort of capstone course or writing project where students pull together ideas from various courses is invaluable.

Though most students who show the initiative to design their own major are very good students, program administrators need to be aware that some students will seek an individualized major as a means to graduate after switching the focus of their studies multiple times. We thus recommend that students need to declare an Individualized Major when they still have at least one (or ideally two) years of study left. That is, the program should not be used as an after-the-fact rationalization of a diverse body of coursework.

Faculty developing such a program should be aware that there is an annual conference devoted to these. See http://www.indiana.edu/~imp/conference/There is also a listserv associated with those conferences. And there is a webpage providing more detailed advice and information at: http://www.umass.edu/imp/index.html