Trends in majors analyzed at CPUC

Launched in 2004 under the leadership of Smith’s predecessor, Nancy Malkiel, Major Choices initiative’s purpose is “to encourage undergraduates to be imaginative and open-minded about their choices and to take the fullest advantage of the many opportunities available to them,” according to the mission statement on its website.

As part of an effort to encourage intellectual exploration, the program publishes an annual booklet that profiles 30 recent University graduates who talk about pursuing careers unrelated to the major they chose. However, Smith explained that Major Choices is not designed solely to redistribute students from larger departments into smaller ones.

“This initiative has produced numerous ancillary benefits that have enhanced the quality and consistency of academic advising,” she said.

These benefits include a growing community of peer academic advisers, better integration of four-year advising through residential colleges and departments and clearer communication between departmental representatives and students, Smith said.

A series of charts presented at the meeting illustrated some larger trends in major selection over the past decade.

Department enrollment in 2011 ranged widely. Fewer than 10 students per department graduated with degrees in independent study programs, geosciences, German and astrophysical sciences, while economics, politics, history and the Wilson School awarded over 80 degrees each. Economics remained the largest department with more than 120 degrees awarded.

Although the social sciences currently house 38 percent of concentrators, data from the past decade reveal a slight decline from a peak of 43 percent in 2004. Similarly, the proportion of humanities majors fell four percent to its current level of 19 percent since 2001.

In contrast, the natural sciences have seen steady growth, accounting for 24 percent of concentrators in 2012, compared to 18 percent in 2001, while enrollment in engineering has remained relatively stable at 19 percent.

Both Smith and President Tilghman chose to highlight the mathematics department for being a role model with its effective undergraduate outreach, which has resulted in an 85-percent growth since the inception of the Major Choices initiative.

“You may have noticed that one of the departments at the very top ... was Mathematics. That was very deliberate,” Tilghman said. “That department really went out of its way to attract students into the major in greater numbers than they have in the past. So there are strategies, and those strategies do work.”

According to mathematics department chair Sun-Yung Alice Chang, the number of math majors has risen from about 12 per year to about 40 per year today over the last 10 years. She attributes this growth to a proactive effort by faculty members to improve the introductory course experience, modernize the entire departmental curriculum and encourage undergraduate research in a wider range of topics.

“We have also had more large general-audience courses on mathematics, such as Professor Daubechies’ MAT 199: Math Alive and, in more recent years, Professor Bhargava’s interdisciplinary course MAT 109: Magic of Numbers, Chang explained in an email. “These courses have introduced large numbers of freshmen and sophomores to the beauty and ubiquity of mathematics and have helped to increase the profile of and popularize the department on campus.”

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Other new popular introductory courses in number theory, combinatorics and game theory have also made the entry into the mathematics major more flexible, she added.

Despite the positive trends seen in most departments, others, such as geosciences and electrical engineering, have shifted in the opposite direction, suggesting that the efforts of Major Choices have yet to benefit certain smaller disciplines. Yet Smith argued that many factors leading to major selection are simply out of the administration’s control.

“It may be tempting to want to argue that the Major Choices initiative is directly responsible for some the significant shifts in distribution of majors we have seen over the course of the past eight years, but we should keep in mind that a variety of factors contribute to major choices,” she said.

In fact, only one-third of students actually choose to concentrate in the prospective major they indicate on their Princeton application, while half eventually choose from their top three choices.

Although the University can shape the composition of each entering class and adjust major requirements to create a better balance of students across departments, it does not have much influence over student-driven and external factors. These may include academic experiences or gateway courses that alter a student’s perception of a field or fluctuating market demand for employees in certain disciplines, Smith said.

Looking forward, she suggested that Major Choices should continue researching the factors of major selection, evaluating dedication to undergraduate outreach across departments, and assessing students’ overall satisfaction with their concentration and academic experience.

In particular, the initiative will track how the upcoming changes in prerequisites for concentration in the Wilson School and economics will affect the distribution of other majors.