<p>Pros and cons of an individual major? Anyone have one and care to share their experiences?</p>
<p>Pros: you get to strike out on your own and design a major that’s uniquely yours, tailored specifically to your interests. You’ll have more control over the classes you have to take. You can develop a close relationship with your professor - the professor who will advise your independent major. You may be able to pick up some specialized knowledge you wouldn’t in a traditional major.</p>
<p>Cons: they can be time-consuming to plan. Depending on the college, it may be very difficult to do: a lot of colleges make you justify why none of the existing majors suit you (e.g., if you want to do urban studies, why can’t you major in sociology?). They can also be difficult to do once you’re past early sophomore year.</p>
<p>An additional con, it may be hard to explain to an employer what exactly it is you studied and why that is at least equivalent to X major that they want to employ. Any company has a good idea about what a Computer Science or an Economics major entails for instance. But if you told them you designed your own major in “Computational Economics” you would have a lot of explaining to do about what it is exactly that you studied.</p>