Majors week aims to help sophomores declare major

With just six weeks left before registration for fall classes and the deadline for sophomores to declare a major quickly approaching, Tufts departments are holding open houses this week to help students make decisions. The department open houses, part of Majors Week, provide an opportunity for students to talk to faculty members, learn more about specific departments, and get course offering information for next fall.

Many students have already put substantial thought into their major (or majors), but the open houses can help students define their interests more clearly. "I think it's a good time to get [students] thinking and starting to focus," Director of the International Relations Program Christian Zehl-Romero said.

Although Majors Week can be helpful to sophomores pressed to declare soon, faculty and students agree that talking to peers, taking classes in a department, and forming closer relationships with faculty are the most influential factors in choosing a major.

Majors Week attempts to foster student-faculty contact by creating a more social setting at the open houses than exists when students visit professors during their office hours in order to make students feel more comfortable about approaching faculty. It is much easier to get to know professors in this setting than one-on-one, one student said.

Giulia Lang, a sophomore majoring in Chinese and International Relations (IR), agreed on the importance of forming close friendships with faculty. Although she found the open houses helpful in facilitating these relationships, she thought the process of getting to know professors should begin much earlier. "I think there should be more faculty-student contact. Freshman year it should be made clearer how important [this contact] is," she said.

The five most popular liberal arts majors are Biology, Economics, English, IR, and Political Science. Of these majors, the Economics Department and IR program have recently seen significant increases in the number of majors in these departments.

Over the past ten years, there has been a 60 percent increase in the number of students majoring in economics, according to Professor Gilbert Metcalf, the Economics Department's chair. This year the department will graduate 250 students. The increase may be due in part to the fact that "students believe an Economics degree can help them in the job market," Metcalf said

International Relations has also seen significant growth and last year, there were 540 students who had declared a major in IR, including sophomores, juniors, and seniors, according to Zehl-Romero. Growth in interest can be attributed to the high quality of the program, she said.

"[The IR program] is highly rated outside Tufts, and quite frankly, quite a large number of students come [to Tufts] with the intention of doing IR," Zehl-Romero said. "I think fewer of them change their minds [as opposed to students who choose other majors]."

Whatever their plans for declaring a major, this is very important time for members of the class of 2005. "Sophomore year is a point when you are realizing what it means to be an academic," Lang said. "Either you are really burnt out, or you are very stimulated and ready to take off."