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An interdisciplinary major consists of an integrated series of courses selected from at least two of the conventional academic disciplines. Interdisciplinary majors are available in Conflict Studies, East Asian Studies, Russian Studies and Women's Studies. Students also have an opportunity to devise, in consultation with faculty advisers, an academic program suited to an area of special interest. Although any general problem of a genuine academic, scientific or intellectual nature may constitute the subject of an interdisciplinary major, such a major is ordinarily defined in one of three ways:

• an area of the world, geographically, politically or culturally prescribed, such as the United States, Latin America, Asia, East Europe or the Middle East;
• a period of time in the history of some part of the world, such as the Victorian Age, the Enlightenment, the Renaissance or the Middle Ages; or
• a specific problem that is treated by several disciplines, such as the concept of social justice, the artist in the modern world, the rhetoric of revolutionary movements or political modernization.

An interdisciplinary major must include at least 16 courses outside the subject matter of the area major involved and may have no more than eight courses in any one discipline (subject) comprising the major. However, up to 10 courses may be taken in a language as part of the interdisciplinary major.

Exceptions to these guidelines may be made for specific programs upon approval of the Committee on Management of Academic Operations.

In selecting a subject for an interdisciplinary major, students should be guided by two further considerations. First, a mere interest in certain academic disciplines, however closely related they may appear, is not a significant justification for an interdisciplinary major. Students must have in mind a subject which can serve as a focal point for the courses chosen. Second, although the subject to be examined in the major may coincide with the vocational interests of a student, it must at the same time be a legitimate object of study in its own right.

The student must earn a 2.0 GPA in all course credit applied to the major and, as a part of the major, each student during the senior year must satisfactorily complete one or more of the following:

• a seminar;
• a thesis;
• appropriate project; or
• departmental comprehensive examination.

Students taking an interdisciplinary major should have the major approved and filed with the Office of the Registrar by the end of the sixth week of the second semester of the sophomore year.

Upon the recommendation of two faculty members from the discipline relevant to the major, students apply to the Office of Academic Affairs for admission early in the second semester of the sophomore year.

Go to the Office of the Registrar Major Page

E-mail questions or comments to jsappenfield@depauw.edu

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