It took some time for me to overlook all of the picturesque brochures to realize that the self-guided education at Hampshire may not be “the only way.” If anyone can give me any insight on how it’s different from other self-designed majors at other LACs I would greatly appreciate it.
The only other designed-curriculum college with which I am familiar is Washington’s The Evergreen State College. It appears to me that at Evergreen, the degree truly is self-guided; an advisor needs to sign off on your studies, but I have never heard of an advisor who refused to do so, or demanded changes. I don’t know how other self-designed majors work elsewhere.
In contrast, I would not typify the Hampshire model as ‘self-guided’. Each student has a faculty committee that oversees the development of a 4-year course of study. Students state the area(s) of concentration that interest them, then must present to their committee a plan to complete study in those areas. It is actually a fairly arduous process, with a lot of deadlines, forms and approvals. A student will not get very far at Hampshire if they attempt to self-guide themselves.
So how do you think this would compare to a blended major at somewhere like Pitzer College? Based on your description it seems like the same thing, except at Hampshire it is integrated into their academics by default.
I am not familiar with Pitzer College but there other LACs at which you can design a major that doesn’t exist. As there is no structure set up specifically for that, the student has to take the initiative to make it happen. Not that big of a deal maybe for some students. The difference that I can see at Hampshire vs other colleges is that Hampshire students are on their way to a self-directed major very quickly - really starting 2nd semester, the requirements are largely out of the way. At some other colleges, the distribution requirements will take 2 or 3 semesters to complete.