Destiny by Design

Custom degrees allow students to create curricula that match their strengths and interests

Web sites that let us become the stars of our own self-directed films, personalized playlists for the iPod, and customized M&M’s — all speak to a 21st-century trend that’s fundamentally reshaping our lives. Choice and individualization drive our times and are now transforming higher education. That’s because a growing number of college students are rejecting one-size-fits-all majors and literally designing their own degrees. Even better, many employers find that these graduates offer unique and desirable skills.

“The process of designing your own major raises the level of enthusiasm, and it makes every step toward the degree a choice that the student has made,” says Daniel Gordon, professor of history and interim director of the Bachelor’s Degree with Individual Concentration (BDIC) program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Students in the program create curricula that combine disciplines such as anthropology and jazz, or social justice and global health. “Every course in the concentration they chose, they calculated. And that’s quite different from being handed a checklist of courses.” According to the Association for Integrative Studies, only 410 interdisciplinary programs — which include individualized major programs and designer degrees — existed a decade ago. Today that number has nearly tripled.

Celebrating Students’ Autonomy

Like every other aspect of modern life, the growing demand for customized education is fueled in part by technology. The expansion of technology has created a culture where people — especially young people — have grown accustomed to talking, reading, watching, texting, and consuming whenever they want. Those expectations have transferred to the academic setting.

Sean Gallagher, a senior analyst for Eduventures, a research and consulting firm that focuses on higher education, refers to these young students as “on-demand” consumers. “It’s this notion of people who are more apt to use a digital recorder or an iPod or BlackBerry or watch TV online. The core, the largest percentage, are in the 25- to 40-year-old range, and that’s the same demographic that continuing and professional education targets,” Gallagher says. “The people who are involved in seeking education are even more oriented toward this expectation of convenience.”

The idea of straying from a structured college curriculum and creating an individualized educational experience dates back at least to the 1960s. “That distrust of the system and authority in general extended into education and politics,” says Ray Hedin, an English professor and director of Indiana University’s Individualized Major Program (IMP). Indiana’s program celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2009, and it counts among its alumni Will Shortz, crossword editor for The New York Times and puzzlemaster for National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition Sunday. Shortz graduated in 1974 with a concentration in enigmatology (the study of puzzles).

“Puzzling is such a specialized field that Indiana University had no reason to offer courses in it,” Shortz says. He pursued independent studies with a diverse collection of faculty who oversaw his work. He spent months in the university’s main library researching his thesis on “The History of American Word Puzzles Before 1860,” which was published in The Journal of Recreational Linguistics. “My enigmatology major did exactly the same thing a traditional major does — it gave me an academic grounding in my field, and then the credentials to prove it.”

Indiana currently has 150 students in the IMP, a 25 percent increase over the past five years. The program even serves as a recruiting tool. “We’re getting increasing numbers of inquiries from high school seniors,” Hedin says. “The university sees us as a lure and sends out brochures to prospective students.”

Taking It to the Bank

The hallmarks of design-your-own-degree programs include intense advising, cross-disciplinary coursework, and a professional project. Students must possess a clear vision of what they want to do, enlist professors to advise them, and produce a work that serves as a cumulative expression of their interests. Customized programs produce biomedical illustrators, video game designers, and developers of holistic approaches to environmental problems. They also serve as a sort of academic petri dish for education’s future: thanks to customized study programs, areas such as women’s studies and fashion design have become standard college majors.

If the students in Hedin’s program are any measure, higher education will see an increasing number of majors devoted to issues of environmental sustainability and global inequality. “Students are starting to become aware of issues that loom with particular intensity for their generation,” Hedin says, “most notably the environment.” Students in recent years have pursued a long list of socially aware degree programs: sustainable management, health education and advocacy, social policy and political responsibility, and peace studies. Hedin calls self-designed degrees “a register of social change.”

Hedin does admit to one concern. He wishes his university had a way of noting students’ individualized studies with something more revealing than the words “individualized major” (IM) at the top of the transcript. “That vagueness can put the student at a disadvantage in presenting himself to employers or graduate schools,” he says. Hedin intends to propose a “colon solution,” with transcripts including the IM designation as well as the area of study (for example, Individualized Major: Fashion Design).

But the question of transcript specificity doesn’t seem to concern most employers, who respond well to the self-motivation required to create and complete an individualized degree. “Students are able to make connections with those integral to their success and follow through with a plan,” says Martha O’Connell, executive director of Colleges That Change Lives, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping students find colleges that are a good fit. “These are the same traits that business leaders are going to look for when they’re hiring — the ability to think creatively, collaboratively, and critically.”

Indeed. Just ask puzzlemaster Will Shortz, this year’s commencement speaker for Indiana University. He put his learning on display, incorporating quizzes and wordplay into his speech.

Grown-Up Goals

Creating tailor-made learning experiences isn’t just for soul-searching undergrads. “Thirty or 40 years ago, acquiring additional skills wasn’t a necessity unless you were in a profession that required continuing education, like a doctor or an engineer,” says Sean Gallagher of the education consulting firm Eduventures. “Today more people feel the need for master’s degrees or for coursework to stay current in their field.” Gallagher says 30–40 percent of those enrolled in colleges and universities are adult learners who need variety in courses.

“If you work for a large corporation and are considering a customized degree, begin with the company’s human resources department,” advises Uma G. Gupta, PhD, president of Global Cube, a management consulting company. “Human resource departments can work effectively with educational institutions to develop such programs.” Or contact the executive education or continuing education division of local universities, or the chair of the program that interests you. “Even with traditional students and their parents, one of the main goals they see for colleges and for what they’re looking for when they enroll in a degree program is job outcomes,” Gallagher says. “The ability to get training, education, and knowledge that can be used broadly and in a field — that’s the focus of most adult learning and continuing education.”