Everyone knows the “big majors” at Vanderbilt. We all recognize a HOD student when we see him or her downing a beer and we even all know what a pre-med major looks like when we catch a rare glimpse of one running from Rand to Stevenson. However, there are also some lesser known majors. For instance how many Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology students do you know? Hell my spell check doesn’t even recognize organismal as a real word. So what motivates these students to pursue these majors? Well here’s a hint: it’s certainly not for prestige, and it’s not for the obvious career options either.
Spanish, Portuguese, and European Studies: This major prides itself on being the hardest major to say five times fast…. in three different languages. Seriously though, a lot of indecision leads to choosing this major. First you can’t decide if you want to do history or political science so you do a combination with European studies. Then you decide you want to do extra language studies. Finally you can’t decide which damn language to learn so you end up with two languages. That’s three levels of confusion, for a major with the obvious career option of backpacking across Europe.
Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology: The obscurity of this major is so intense that it makes up a new word. I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure this is a real major. It sounds like some sort of horrible cross breed between Al Gore and Charles Darwin. This major is for all the science students that found out all too late that they aren’t actually science students. That and they’re probably still in denial that they aren’t science students. But it’s not all bad for our EEOB friend. The word biology is in their major title so they may be able to fool some employers into a job offer…. well maybe…..
Ancient Mediterranean Studies: This major is just one giant middle finger to your parents, or whoever is paying for your Vandy sized tuition. Classics majors are renowned for performing well after college but that’s mostly due to their language skills, which this major is severely lacking. Studying ancient warfare isn’t the road to success; in fact it looks a lot more like the road to poverty and soul crushing failure. Enjoy!
Create-A-Major: This major is the king of kings in obscurity. Honestly, anyone doing this either actually knows exactly what they want to do for the rest of their life, or more likely they like being “different”. Unfortunately I can’t comment as to this major’s success, it really comes down to how good you are at naming your major. “Business and Finance” is likely to pay off big by being different at Vanderbilt but not different overall. Meanwhile, “The Psychological and Philosophical Basis of Polytheistic Religions in Modern Film” says that you don’t think being homeless is such a big deal.
