"Non traditional" majors?

College Majors
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I hear often that kids applying for college aren’t quite sure what they want to declare as a major. CS, mech or chem eng, biology, psychology, nursing, business, econ: all are pretty popular and regular majors. But there’s a huge world out there outside of those options.

I’m just curious about what “non-traditional” majors you have seen out there being offered.

Recently I discovered “Welding engineering” and “esports management” as degrees.

Maybe because I’m in healthcare I was just silly to not know these exist. I thought it would be interesting to hear about perhaps some lesser-known degrees.

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Number of US colleges offering the following ABET-accredited engineering majors:

2 Ceramics Engineering
1 Cybersecurity Engineering
4 Engineering Mechanics
1 Fire Protection Engineering
8 Metallurgical Engineering
8 Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering
10 Ocean Engineering
6 Optical Engineering
8 Surveying and Geomatics Engineering

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Thanks! These are all interesting!

Agribusiness and Applied Economics. Agriculture Communications. Geographic information science.

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ABET also offers accreditation in Applied and Natural Sciences, such as the following majors (with number of US colleges):

6 Environmental Health and Safety
9 Facility Management
6 Health Physics
24 Industrial Hygiene
16 Safety
11 Surveying and Geomatics

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A major for pre-meds who do not want to choose a more traditional major:

https://science.nd.edu/undergraduate/sample-curricula/preprofessional-studies-sample-curriculum/

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Gerontology
Holistic Psychology

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DD19 is a Parks & Rec major.

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textile engineering

hotel management

printmaking

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Defense and Strategic Studies
Military and Strategic Studies

(any guesses on where these majors are offered?)

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Carnegie Mellon offers the country’s only bachelor’s degree in bagpipes.

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Applied biology (combo program with masters in forestry from Duke)

Digital Innovation, Film and Television

Economics, Sustainability, and Society

Land, Farming and Community

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There are schools that offer Intelligence Analysis undergraduate and graduate degrees.

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While this represents a traditional topic of study, Sewanee appears uncommon in its depth by offering a minor in Shakespeare studies.

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Flamenco Dance
Arts Leadership and Business
Native American Studies
Sign Language Interpretation

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Brown has some interesting ones: behavioral decision sciences, contemplative studies, egyptology/assyriology, science technology and society, social analysis and research

Also we have independent “design-your-own” concentrations, but the only ones I’ve seen “in the wild” are human rights and behavioral genetics.

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Perhaps the entire category of engineering technology majors, which are relatively uncommon compared to engineering majors, can be in this thread.

These are accredited by ABET’s Technology Accreditation Commission.

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History and Philosophy of Science

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Wine / Viticulture / Enology

Celtic Studies

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Range Science
Turfgrass Science and Management
Explosives Engineering
Canadian-American Studies
Plant Biotechnology
Animal Industry Management
Mortuary and Funeral Sciences

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Yeesh, I work in games…don’t major in esports management.

I’ve seen an increasing number of majors in my field - user experience - at the undergrad level, and those are pretty nontraditional. Michigan State, for example, has a major in experience architecture (which is about how to design digital products and experiences for actual humans), and Arizona State has something called “graphic information technology - user experience,” which sounds pretty similar. Several schools in the Seattle area, for obvious reasons, also have such degrees: UW has human-centered design & engineering (we have a lot of grads from that program around), Northwest U has a user experience design major, etc.

The University of Richmond used to have a program called “medical humanities.” They’ve since renamed it to health studies, and broadened it a bit, but initially it was about using the lens of the humanities to understand health and medical problems.

Duke has a major in Slavic & Eurasian studies, which you don’t see everywhere. Emory has a major in medical imaging.

Carnegie Mellon has several interesting, offbeat majors and minors: neural computation, human-computer interaction (that’s very close to UX), decision science (very cool interdisciplinary field).

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