USU favorite choices for degrees don’t match national data
When it comes to the most popular bachelor’s degrees across the U.S., USU may not appear to conform.
A look at the most popular conferred bachelor’s degrees nationally, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, reveals that business, social sciences and history, health professions, education and psychology, respectively, have been the five diplomas most seen in the hands of the nation’s graduates through 2009. While data provided by USU’s Office of Analysis, Assessment and Accreditation reveal that business and education degrees are also found on the list of the five most popular degrees at USU for the 2009-10 school year, there are differences from the national study.
Interdisciplinary studies (5th at USU, 14th nationally) and engineering (4th at USU, 9th nationally) lay significant claims as bachelor’s degrees ranking much higher on the popularity scale in Logan, while psychology (12th at USU, 5th nationally) did not rank quite as high.
Mary Leavitt, the interdisciplinary studies academic adviser for both the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Caine College of the Arts, said students from regional campuses would factor into the primary reason why USU students tend to graduate with more interdisciplinary studies degrees. She said students who return to school after several years of not being enrolled sometimes find that a major they previously declared is no longer available.
Others may have been majoring in a discipline within the colleges of business or engineering and will choose to use the credits toward an interdisciplinary studies degree, since credits toward degrees within the two colleges are no longer valid once a student has been out of school for two or more years.
“They still want to be able to have the credits count for something,” Leavitt, a 22-year veteran of the advising center, said. “You can see in that case why interdisciplinary would be attractive.”
Among students from both regional campuses and in Logan, Leavitt said she has found that some realize the major “isn’t all they had imagined” once they reach the upper-division courses, prompting them to pull back the reins and change, or add a second discipline as their major.
Leavitt said there are those who come into the university not realizing their desired major is not offered.
However, Leavitt acknowledged although she has indeed helped students navigate through such crises, such cases haven’t been the reasons students pursue a combined-discipline route. Rather, students have often been fond of pursuing an education that is exactly tailored to their envisioned career path.
“I’ve had some students come in and just make me go ‘Wow, I would’ve never thought of that before,'” Leavitt said of selected career paths such as an athlete who wanted to learn how to operate a sports bar, or a female student who combined various marketing, interior design and theater classes to create an event planning curriculum. “Cool degrees have come out of this.”
Francine Johnson, the associate dean of the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education, has found many interdisciplinary studies students within her college who pursue certain mixed-discipline courses, because they want to certify to sign to a deaf audience at a public event – something that isn’t availed through the college’s deaf education program.
“Maybe we have more of an entrepreneurial spirit here,” Johnson said. “Maybe students have been looking to do that more than typical students (at other colleges).”
Interdisciplinary bachelor’s degrees have followed a steady trend in the past few years, from 311 such degrees conferred five years ago, to 343 two years ago and 330 in the 2009-10 school year.
Wynn Walker, a senior associate dean of the college of engineering, came to Logan more than a decade ago after teaching at Colorado State University, and said he is convinced that USU’s inviting community atmosphere, along with the intense recruitment efforts of the college, are the primary reasons the variety of degrees found within the college are so appealing to students.
“The feel of this place is unlike so many other schools,” said Walker. “Those who visit here can’t seem to not be impressed by what we offer as a community. We do also work very hard to help incoming students see what sort of program they can be a part of.”
Walker said the college’s recruiting efforts among high school juniors at Engineering State each June are responsible for an average of 251 engineering degrees each year in the past five years. Although that per-year number has only increased one year during that span.
Walker said he has optimism that the degree can continue to climb the ladder, at least at USU.
“We could add another in basket weaving,” he said. “Whatever works best for us.”
The number of conferred bachelor’s degrees for psychology has fluctuated from 120, five years ago, to 83 in 2008, and to 98 for the spring 2010 semester. Gretchen Peacock, the head of the psychology department, said she is not concerned with the data wave, nor with the fact that her department ranks lower in popularity compared to national statistics.
“Our dip a few years ago reflected what happened in the university across the board,” Peacock said. “I expect it will remain the same way in the future.”
The two-year USU department head, who has held academic-related psychology jobs in Idaho and the University of Nebraska, said she is confident in her department’s ability to hold its own, even if it follows a similar trend in what the university offers in the coming years.
“I don’t think there’s anything problematic in the (national) numbers that indicates there’s anything wrong here that causes us to say we need to make more majors,” she said. “Students will seek the discipline.”
– rhett.wilkinson@aggiemail.usu.edu