Individualized Major (B.A.)

This program enables students to earn the B.A. degree in a major construct to fit academic interests that lie outside the scope of existing major programs at the University. Unlike other majors, which have a set curriculum, the Individualized Major allows students to construct programs of study to serve their own personal and professional needs. In contrast to the major in Liberal Studies:

• The Individualized Major does not require that the student be an adult.
• It requires a definable area of concentration in which it confers a recognizable level of competence and expertise.

The Individualized Major meets the needs of disciplined and well-motivated students whose academic interests are not well served by the regular curriculum. Careful design of an Individualized Major should enable such students to prepare themselves for particular careers and allow them to gain admission into specialized graduate and professional programs. Most Individualized major students fall into two distinct categories:

• Those who wish to major in either traditional disciplines or recognized interdisciplinary areas for which majors are not available at the University. The Individualized Major can serve transfer students who wish to continue work started elsewhere in areas in which University faculty have expertise but no organized majors.
• Those who wish to fashion unique majors to reflect their personal or professional individual experience, interests, and/or needs. These include students whose work and life experience suggest the need for fresh ways of organizing existing courses into meaningful new majors, as well as innovative students who wish to bring together course work in several disciplines to focus on a thematic area or make unusual, yet valid connections between areas that are rarely studied together.

Admission and Academic Progress

The Individualized Major program is administered through the College of Arts and Sciences’ Dean’s office, which supplies information and initial counseling to students who wish to consider designing an Individualized Major. All students seeking the Individualized Major must be admitted to the University and have a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.75. Before proposing an individualized program, students must have completed at least 30 (but no more than 60) hours (either at USF or transferred) including Foundations I, Foundations II (College Writing II), and a math course. Students desiring to pursue an Individualized Major should confer with the Dean, who will provide assistance in identifying and securing the agreement of a faculty member to serve as advisor. Under the supervision of this advisor, the student will take a one-credit hour tutorial course in which they prepare a proposal for an Individualized Major. The student is accepted for admission to the major when this proposal is approved by the advisor and the Arts and Sciences Department Chairs. The major plan may subsequently be amended only in consultation with the advisor and with approval of Arts and Sciences Department Chairs. After gaining admission to the IM program, students must meet each semester with their advisors to register for courses and consider academic progress. A key component of the senior year is the variable credit capstone course, an independent study project in which students synthesize their work in the major. The project is approved and graded by the advisor and Arts and Sciences Department Chairs or a panel of experts appointed by the Arts and Sciences Department Chairs. The advisor and Arts and Sciences Department Chairs certify students for graduation with the Individualized Major.

Major Program (40 credit hours)

The Individualized Major requires a minimum of 40 credit hours:

• Two courses are required of all students (4 to 7 credit hours). These two courses are taken on an individual basis with a faculty member whose expertise or interests that fits areas of study of the student.
  • IDMR 101 Individualized Major Plan
  • IDMR 400 Individualized Major Senior Project
• The remaining courses (30 or more credit hours) are selected from existing courses.
  • No lower or upper division courses applied to the major’s general education requirements may be included in the Individualized Major
  • At least 15 credit hours in the major must be at the 300 or 400 level (in addition to the Individualized Major Plan and Individualized Major Senior Project)
  • No more than 6 credit hours of independent study may be counted in the major.
  • All courses counted in the major must be taken for letter grade; no course receiving a grade below C may be counted toward the major.

Students work with their advisors in selecting additional elective credits to fulfill the 120 credit hours required for graduation.