<p>The title says it all.</p>
<p>Well, NYU has Gallatin where students design a program of study tailored to their own needs and interests.</p>
<p>Is that what you’re talking about?</p>
<p>You usually have to get your major plan approved by an adviser or the like.</p>
<p>For example your college does not have an international relations major, only a poli sci major…Can you major in international relations, given that the plan, courses etc. are approved by an adviser?</p>
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<p>I imagine this is one very common example. If I go to WashU, I will probably have to do this. They have International Studies (but not relations) and Political Science. I’ll just combine the two. No big deal. I’m going to grad school anyway. If you self-design, be sure to pick up a double major.</p>
<p>It needs to still be a real plan. Yes, you can pick your courses, but they all need to be around a central theme, and that theme has to be one you can realistically create from courses that are offered by your college.</p>
<p>So your example is a really excellent one - and, I would guess that at most colleges, you’ll have had at least one student before you who has created an IR major, so there’s probably a template already in place that you can follow. My college (Mount Holyoke) keeps all of its self-designed major proposals on file so that students can review them, and in almost every case, you can find someone who went before you and already did the work by creating what you’re looking for. Pretty handy. :)</p>
<p>I would like to MHC2011’s post that past self-designed major plans do not only make your job easier, but also set expectations for what a particular major has to look like in order to get approved. For example, my college only approves self-designed majors in IR that contain 4 years of a single foreign language. Try to talk to an advisor before you pick your fall courses to find out what the expectations are.</p>