1)      Costume Studies

2)      Myth and Symbol

3)      Ethnobotany

4)      Medieval and Renaissance Studies

5)      English*

The students who choose these majors are smart, well-informed people. And they’re in law school! Journalism school! They are gainfully employed!

Vassar, like most small liberal arts schools, offers a lot of academic freedom. Honestly, you can study pretty much whatever you want and call it a major. You’ll still get your diploma come graduation, and, if I’m any indication, you won’t wind up homeless. Far from it. A lot of people will tell you to study what you like, not what you think will get you a job. I agree, but I believe you should think of college as more than just a means to a career; it is its own opportunity, and it should be treated as such. You have your whole life to master a career. You have four short years to study whatever you love.

I declared an English major with no illusions that my keen analysis of Kafka would have employers knocking at my door. No matter. For me it was the right choice because no starting salary could have made me interested in Industrial Organization (Econ 355) or Declarative Models of Programming (Computer Science 245). It just wasn’t going to happen.

In a completely un-random sample of Vassar grads (namely, my friends), a good one quarter to one third entered Vassar on a pre-med track. Believe me, that statistic changed and fast. The beauty of a liberal arts education is that you’re not limited to taking classes only in the field of your intended profession. In fact, you’re actively discouraged from it. With so much academic freedom and experimentation, you’re likely to stumble upon a class or two that you just can’t stand—something you thought you’d try out that is totally outside your normal realm of interest. And for good reason, you’ll soon realize. But just as likely is that you’ll happen upon a class that fascinates you. You’ll enroll in a class wildly divergent from the pre-med path, and find yourself much happier than you ever were in Genetics and Genomics (Biology 244).

So if that happens to you, I say go with it. Maybe you’ll discover your own ridiculous major, embrace it for four wonderful years, and then go on to law school.

Still, whatever happens, don’t major in Myth and Symbol.

*That was my major and I’m just kidding…mostly…