The environment at DePauw offers a plethora of paths for every student, but every student must select a major to be listed on their diploma.
Following this liberal arts approach, students choose majors based on academic subjects — economics, communication and psychology — instead of hotel management, broadcast journalism or law enforcement.
Pedar Foss, dean of Academic Life, said educating someone holistically is very different than educating them for a trade. Lots of universities educate students for trades, but not many focus on the whole person, he said.
"That's the job of the liberal arts university," Foss said. "It's a special job; it's an expensive job because it requires a whole lot of attention and conversation in small numbers with faculty who know what they're doing."
In the spring of 2010, DePauw's top three majors were communication (217), economics (194) and English writing (162), three disciplines that can be applied in most occupations.
"A liberally educated person has to know a variety of approaches, a variety of contents, a variety of theoretical frames through which they approach problems, issues and evidence," Foss said. "And liberally educated people are able to make connections between those different areas.
"And so that provides breadth, but in order to have depth, in order to be truly conversant or expert or able to make a difference in anything you need to concentrate in a particular area of two, so that you really know something about it. And that's why we have majors," Foss continued.
Many students come to college thinking they know what they want to do, but in reality, the majority of students will change their mind, Foss said. The liberal arts school allows students to explore different areas and find what they love.
Sophomore Stacey Way has known she wanted to be a lawyer since the seventh grade.
Way's parents, first generation immigrants from Greece, and her grandparents, who came to the United States with hardly anything, wanted to see a professional in the family.
"I claimed lawyer, my brother claimed doctor," Way said.
Reflective of her penchant for making decisions and sticking with them, Way declared her double major in English writing and communication during her second semester on campus. Way also participates in the Media Fellows program of distinction and selected education studies as a minor.
Way arrived at DePauw with nine Advanced Placement credits, freeing up her schedule and allowing her to pursue so many different disciplines. But in order to assure that she gets into the classes she needs to complete her minor, Way e-mails professors about enrolling in their classes a semester in advance.
Her interest in an education minor spawned from a meeting about the Fulbright Scholar Program. Before continuing onto graduate school, Way would like to go abroad and teach, because she loves to share her passions with others. She hopes that her education minor will bring her closer to that goal.
"I've got lots of goals," Way said. "They're kind of broad in their category but narrow in their thought process … It's a lots of goals that will take form I think later in life."
On top of her academic engagements, Way is also a water aerobics instructor, assistant news director for WGRE news and a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority. She hopes to intern in Chicago with TeamWorks Media this summer and in the White House for her Media Fellows internship.
This broad range of interests is characteristic of DePauw students. Foss said in his experience, most of the students who are committed to numerous majors and programs on campus are so involved because they truly love those activities and areas of study, not because they think it will look good on their résumé.
"Résumé building assumes that you know what any particular employer wants," Foss said. "But how can you possibly know what all the possible businesses or hire-ers or schools are going to want from you?"
Senior Jordan Stefanov decided he wanted to major in economics before he even arrived at DePauw and declared during his first semester on campus. Stefanov, a Bulgarian student and child of two mathematics teachers, focused on math in high school, and thought an economics major would suit his interests well.
"I did not know a whole lot about the field," Stefanov said. "So it was a leap in the dark, so to speak, for me. But then, after I took my Intro to Economics class I knew that I loved it."
Originally, Stefanov thought he wanted to attend graduate school before entering the work force and hoped that a mathematics minor would give him an edge in the admissions process.
Stefanov said he likes how economics helps develop strong independent thinking skills and is also good for international work. But there were other reasons he chose his course of study.
"The first thing, was, again the prestige to it. Just because people go into these fields and you hear about all these successful people and you want to be one of them," he said. "That's the tip of the iceberg."
Stefanov does not regret the decision to declare an economics major early in his college career.
"I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that I just got very lucky that I liked the things that I thought I would like," he said. "The only regret I have is that I couldn't take more classes."
However, some prospective students have academic interests that don't align with any academic programs DePauw provides.
"There are students every year who come to us with a major that we just don't have," said Earl Macam, director of Admission. "We guide them and make them understand the institution and help them understand the liberal arts."
Macam pointed to nursing as one of these areas of study. In situations like these, Macam said the admissions office is upfront with prospective students in letting them know the opportunities in that academic program are slim at DePauw.
In the situation of talking to a student interested in nursing, Macam said he would highlight the biology and health sciences programs at DePauw. He said it's important that prospective students understand the liberal arts education at DePauw, rather than the specific academic programs.
"We look at it as an opportunity to sell DePauw, but we also look at it as an opportunity to educate a student upon what we are as an institution," Macam said. "And, you know, to celebrate the fact that, again, we are a liberal arts college."
As a prospective student, sophomore Katherine White was interested in an area of study DePauw didn't offer: international relations. She didn't necessarily attend DePauw for its academic programs — financial scholarship was her largest motivation to enroll.
While she believes that the education here is very strong and enjoys the small student-to-teacher ratio, White felt somewhat discouraged there wasn't an international relations program. So, she assumed conflict studies would be a comparable option.
"I do know that when you type in ‘conflict studies' into Google, DePauw is the first thing that comes up," White said. "And I don't think that's how a major should be. To me, that means it's not necessarily legitimate."
However, she acknowledges that she could have researched DePauw's academic options more as a prospective student before making her decision.
White also noted that she believes it's odd that DePauw encourages off-campus study through international Winter Term trips and spending a semester abroad, but that international relations isn't something one can study as a specific discipline.
Because White had to declare a major in order to apply for her study abroad program, she chose to obtain a bachelor's degree in history and political science and to minor in French.
"I figured it would be the same thing anyway," White said. "To be honest, you're taking the same kind of classes, and I thought it would all even out."
White said she feels having a broad major rather than a more narrowly focused one will make her a one-in-a-million graduate.
"I think the main problem of a liberal arts education is that you're paying thousands of dollars for the price of a library card," she said.
However, White said every adult she has talked to hasn't pointed to the major as the most important part of undergraduate study.
"It's being able to come out of college being able to read, being able to write, being able to speak and being able to interact well with people is what's important," she said.
Unlike Stefanov and Way, White doesn't exactly know what type of career she intends on pursuing after college — she just knows that studying on a global level is what she enjoys for now.
"Basically, whatever you want to do, you can do at this school," White said. "It just takes a little bit of effort in knowing who to talk to."