I was recently admitted to the University of Rochester, and I am in love with the many things about it. I love that it is a small school, has friendly people, tons of things to do on campus, and is right by a small city. However, being more of an artsy person, I am a little unsure of whether the U of R will be the right place for me.
As of now, I would like to pursue something in advertising, combining my interests of graphic design and psychology. U of R does not have Marketing as a specific major. Would I be able to create this major, or would I be better off at another school?
Any feedback is welcomed and appreciated. Thank you so much!
I'm not sure I can answer your question directly because I'm not sure exactly what you mean. There is, for example, a business major with a marketing track. In a school that isn't an undergraduate business school - meaning not a liberal arts university - I think that's kind of typical. If you go to a school that has a marketing major, I believe those tend to be business schools, as in a business school within a university.
But business schools don't connect graphic design and psychology that much. Their approach to marketing tends to be quantitative and principle oriented. So for example, at Boston University, advertising is a major but it's within the School of Communications, not their business school. (Kids there sometimes double degree, not double major, to get a degree from both their COM and SMG schools. That's more work than 2 majors.) I can't speak to how every school does this, but you're really speaking about at least 3, maybe 4 areas within a typical school: art school for graphics, psychology in liberal arts, marketing in business and advertising in communications. At many schools, that could be 4 separate colleges with separate requirements. I'm not talking about schools limited to business; they may have an advertising/marketing class but will then tend to lack the arts part and maybe some of the liberal arts part.
If you're indeed artsy and want to include actual graphic design work along with business, then you're more likely to be able to do that UR than at most other schools. They encourage cross-disciplinary work and arts aren't isolated in their own school, as often happens in universities. They have a multidisciplinary center that administers school recognized programs which cross lines and they encourage students to create their own courses of studies. You can't "create a major" because, as I remember, majors have to be approved by the state. You can perhaps develop a minor or some other interdepartmental thing, but that doesn't happen on its own because you want to sign up this or that class. You can certainly double major at UR; it's common because the Rochester Curriculum doesn't have the standard distributional requirements. You have more academic freedom at UR than at all but a handful of universities.
Rochester has a Business major and a Digital Media Studies major. You could do one or the other as a minor with a psych major. (My d had a Social Sciences major, a Humanities major, and a Humanities minor. She discovered it was perfectly doable.)
Lergnom - Yeah, I was worried about the quantitative and principle oriented aspects of the business school because I am pretty weak in the math department. However, I have a friend at U of R who said that creating a major is "relatively easy," so I'll check that out!
Chedva - That sounds like something I'd be very interested in doing! How did your daughter enjoy U of R?
Thank you guys both for your feedback! It was very helpful. Definitely considering U of R even more now.
i know someone who is declaring an interdepartmental major (he's doing entrepreneurship) so if you want to make your own major instead of double majoring, that is certainly doable. if you want to make sure that you can do that, you can contact jackie levine, the director/assistant dean and you can find more information. just so you know, the office does study abroad stuff also, so don't think you're contacting the wrong person!
To clarify an earlier comment, official majors require state approval. Interdepartmental majors within the school use existing majors. Sorry about the confusion.
But I would never go to a school thinking, "I'm going to make up my own major." That's silly. You go to a school because you want to go there, because it's affordable for your family and because they offer what you want to study. Your ideas about what you want and how you want to do things change and develop while you're in school. UR offers many options for study, including Take 5 if your academic interests mean you need an extra year. (Look up the Take 5 program.) But you shouldn't go in thinking about that stuff; you should go to school thinking about being a freshman, taking those classes, finding things you want to do (like clubs) and then seeing what you want to do.
Definitely considering U of R even more now.
