Linguistics.
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What I find fascinating is - that in so many fields - linguistics, philosophy, poli sci, urban studies, geography - whatever it is - there are so many âsubâ levels.
But one thing that concerns me is they offer these in the catalogue - but then you look at schedules the last few years and many arenât offered.
My daughter wanted to do her 2nd major in Urban Studies with a Social Policy track (her school offers three) - but when we looked at the last few years - hardly any classes were offered - so we had to switch her to Poli Sci. Her major requires a 2nd majorâŠand Urban Studies seemed perfectâŠbut alas, it wasnât.
So not just listed offerings - but is the school actually able to meet that âadvertisementâ if you will.
I know linguistics is getting harder and harder to find - some schools are cutting and thereâs so many directions that major can go - lots of sub areas.
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Itâs a good point to look at whether courses are currently (or recently) offered. It can be also helpful to look at the list of faculty, currently active research projects, and labs related to the subarea. Sometimes the only professor in a particular subarea has left the school or changed their research focus.
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Many departments at smaller schools have a rotating schedule of classes they offer. Those classes may be on a 2-4 year rotation schedule, so a class you want to take may only be offered once during your 4 years attending.
Thatâs another good question to ask about when talking to schools/departments. Itâs also a good reason to really look at course catalogs.
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If the course is an upper level course not normally available to frosh/soph students (due to prerequisites or just being filled by juniors/seniors), then once every two year offering likely gives the student only one chance to take it.
Also, even if there are no prerequisites, a course offered only once every four years may be unnoticed by someone who enters as frosh during the year offered, when the student is more busy with prerequisites to their possible majors.
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This was the kind of âinside baseballâ information I was talking about upthread. I, too, didnât know about this as an issue until D20 had spoken with several professors at different colleges and they all highlighted that as an issue to be thinking about with their department.
Each professor also gave her an overview of how she could fit the classes she was interested in over a 4 year schedule. But, yes, if she hadnât made those contacts with specific departments, she wouldnât have known about this.
At her college, she has found that a couple of her professors have been willing to move a tentatively scheduled course she wanted to take to a semester she could take it in (rather than offering it during her year abroad). I am not sure how often that type of offer is/can be made though.
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We are also seeing this in small departments (materials science) at large schools. Many even have warnings on the curriculum page about how courses are not taught every semester or year, and it is important to plan ahead to avoid missing requirements.
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@beebee3 @tamagotchi Here is a thread on the subject of small departments which may offer some courses infrequently:
or is abroad
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âŠor, to pile on with the possibilities, has taken a position as department chair or in university administration, thus reducing or even eliminating their teaching load.
The degree to which particular courses exist because of faculty availability is one of the dirty little secrets of the teaching side of higher ed. This is, of course, much more of an issue at smaller departments, but it isnât exclusive to themâfor a concrete example, I was a member of an English department with 70+ full-time faculty earlier in my career, but the only faculty members teaching linguistics courses were me (my entire teaching load) and one other (about half of their teaching load).
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Faculty availability isnât the only reason why certain courses may not be available every year. Insufficient demand for such courses is another reason. IMO, the best way to determine how frequently a particular course in a course catalog is available is to look at course schedules in previous years and terms.
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I think this part of the thread is also being held in the other thread where they moved it. I keep wanting to respond here but holding back since it is being discussed on the new break-off thread specific to the question of class offerings.
Usually reading the senior thesis is a good way to gauge rigor. If there is no senior thesis, then, wellâŠ
Most majors have a capstone project, but in many colleges, only students seeking honors do a thesis, which is longer and more research-intensive. That rule (re: who does a thesis), where it exists, is often college-wide. So you canât always judge the rigor of a major based on whether students complete a thesis.
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Yeah, what @Shelby_Balik said, plus the fact that senior theses arenât always labeled as such and/or arenât always available.
A number of majors at the (open-access!) college I work at require the equivalent of a senior thesis (or sometimes senior project, especially for the professional fields), but theyâre folded into a senior course or course sequence, and youâd never really know it was producing a thesis equivalent from the course description.
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I wonder about talking with current student majors? With the right questions, I think that you can quickly find out about the general level of instruction in the college, how hard the students are working, etc.
I know that the colleges usually select carefully the students that they put in touch with prospective students. But student-to-student we have been struck by the things that students reveal - what they think is âpositive.â
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And as a non-counterpoint that might sound like a counterpoint at first, even though Reddit fora are generally populated by current students, take what you see there with at least as much of a grain of salt as youâd see hereâReddit has a tendency (not just on college fora!) to amplify the most extreme voices, and arguably especially the most negative extremes.
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