Question on Selecting a Yale Major

kwijiborjt
Sat, 21 Mar 2009 18:04:08 +0000

There are only a few majors that are selective…

Architecture, International Relations, EP&E (Ethics, Politics, and Economics), and there’s been talk about limiting the Environmental Studies major because demand is increasing.

For all of these majors, you apply some time in the first or second semester of sophomore year, and if you don’t get in you can chose another major. IR and EPE are selective, but i’m pretty sure it’s not hard to get into the architecture major as long as you’ve taken all the prerequisites. The major itself is a lot of work though.

IR and EPE are both pretty vague and broad based humanities majors. If you have a specific area you want to concentrate on, you could probably do it in another department (one of the regional studies departments, philosophy, political science, economics, etc.). Remember that only about 10-14 classes are taken in the major, so you can easily take electives if you want courses in ethics, politics, and economics.

Another thing worth noting is that you can get into almost any selective class or program if you’re persistent. I suspect that if you take the prerequisites for a dept, get to know the DUS and keep in contact, and write a good application, you’ll probs get into the dept. of your choice. And even if you don’t, if you’re persistent people will probably drop out and they’ll let you in. The same applies to directed studies… even if you don’t get in, keep emailing Jane Levin bc lots of people drop it during reading period. You’ll get in if you want to. And the same applies to freshman seminars, and a lot of exclusive seminars. A lot of people applying to these things don’t care that much if they don’t get in, so if you’re persistent they’ll probably let you in.