Going into her fourth semester, sophomore Shahrazad Shareef still had not decided on a major.
She knew she liked art history and economics, but could not decide which one she wanted to pursue, so she decided to combine them into a double major just a few days ago.
Like Trinity College's other 1344 sophomores, Shareef was staring down an earlier deadline for declaring her major this spring than her predecessors had. This year, all Trinity sophomores must fill out their long range plan, write their essay and meet with their pre-major advisor by March 5, the start of spring break. The new deadline falls earlier than the last day of classes--the old deadline.
Norman Keul, the director of the Pre-Major Advising Center, proposed the change to the deans of Trinity College in spring 2003, and the deans approved it in April. The Pre-Major Advising Center informed students of the change via newsletter at the start of last semester, and have sent periodic e-mails to remind them of the approaching deadline.
There are a number of reasons for the change.
"When you are making these big decisions, the [choice of major] really ought to be settled before you go off on study abroad, or before you choose your courses for your second half of studies," Keul said.
"[The new deadline] encourages students to do what they have to do anyway, but to do it in such a way that they've established their intellectual home before they start picking courses that will in fact be taken in that new intellectual home."
Keul added that the new deadline enables students to finalize their major in February, a much less hectic time than the end of the year, when students typically worked on their long range plan with the old deadline.
The major declaration deadline for the Pratt School of Engineering remains the end of sophomore year, though many students choose to declare by the end of the first semester of their sophomore year, said Connie Simmons, the assistant dean for undergraduate affairs for Pratt. Program II students may or may not be affected, depending on how far along they are in the process of gaining approval for their program.
For example, a sophomore interested in pursuing Program II still has to declare a Program I major by March 5. Once the Program II proposal is approved, it will then replace the previously declared major, Keul said.
Many of Duke's peer institutions follow a similar procedure of having students declare their major before they register for their fifth semester.
"Sophomores declare their major in the spring before they sign up for fall courses," said Robert Bromfield, the deputy registrar for Princeton University. "It's to the students' advantage to declare during that period so they can have a better chance of getting into courses in their major department."
Departments at Duke also encourage students to apply for their major before registering to ensure priority placement in department classes. "[The earlier major declaration deadline] will make a difference for students because it gets them listed as a major, so that for the next term, they can qualify for reserve seating," said Lori Leachman, the director of undergraduate studies in Economics, the most popular major at Duke. "It just sends a signal to sophomores that they've got to decide, which I think is a good thing. They only have 50 percent of their college education left."
The change is also expected to affect the study abroad program. "It's difficult as a second semester junior with no major declared," said Margaret Riley, the Director of the Office of Study Abroad. "We want to make sure that when a student decides to go abroad it fits into their academic plans. Knowing what major they're going to be in and what their requirements are is going to help them, versus being in limbo going abroad, taking courses that won't fit into their plans for themselves if they're declaring later than that. Hopefully study abroad will be a better academic complement to their experience at Duke."
Those who don't declare by the March 5 deadline face the consequence of blocked registration, but even indecisive students need not fear the new rules since one can switch majors later through the registrar's office.
"You can change," Shareef said. "Nothing is set in stone."
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