Pop quiz: What is the difference between a tangerine and a clementine?
If you’re stumped, then you probably did not get a degree from Florida Southern College in citrus studies, an interdisciplinary major that introduces students to the ins and outs of producing and marketing—you guessed it—citrus fruits. Courses include CIT 3301: “Introduction to Citrus” and a for-credit internship in Florida’s citrus industry. If that experience doesn’t result in a full-time job, at least graduates know they’ll have a leg up in the produce aisle on all those chumps who majored in history.
Here are some other majors that get extra credit for originality.
Carnegie Mellon U.
Major: Bagpipes
Notable courses: One-on-one bagpipe studio courses with Andrew Carlisle, a master piper
Details: As students in the Carnegie Mellon School of Music, a conservatory, pipers take a full slate of history and theory courses alongside their cello- and flute-playing classmates in addition to bagpiping lessons each semester. Andrew N. Bova, this year’s lone bagpiping graduate, says he first aspired to attend the prestigious program, which rarely has more than two or three students at a time, when he began playing the bagpipes at the age of 12. “It’s very well known in the piping world,” he says.
Bowdoin College
Major: Arctic studies
Notable courses: “Arctic Peoples,” “Arctic Explorations,” “Arctic Politics”
Details: Arctic studies is not a free-standing department. Rather, students in such fields as English, anthropology, and earth and oceanographic science can choose it as a concentration. The program is small, netting just two or three students in each class, says Susan A. Kaplan, director of Bowdoin’s Arctic Studies Center, but that means the students frequently get to participate in field research in the cold northern latitudes—even farther north than Bowdoin’s campus in Brunswick, Me., that is.
Liberty U.
Major: Women’s ministries
Notable courses: “The Christian Woman,” “The Role of Christian Women in Ministry,” “Introduction to Creative Worship”
Details: At Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Va., women can major in women’s ministries to learn “basic principles of biblical femininity,” according to Liberty’s Web site. “Tragically, the majority of women today are left with thoughts of hopelessness as they embrace the world’s ever-changing view of womanhood rather than the Creator’s beautiful design of femininity,” writes Monica R. Brennan, director of the Center for Women’s Ministries. Suggested career paths for graduates include “teen girl camp counselor,” “women’s conference speaker,” and “women’s ministry director in the local church.”
Pitzer College
Major: Secular studies
Notable courses: “The Secular Life,” “The Sociology of Secularity,” “Skepticism, Secularism, and Critiques of Religion”
Details: Many colleges have religion departments, but this fall Pitzer College will become the first institution to offer a degree in nonreligion. The secularism major, designed by Phil Zuckerman, a sociologist of religion, will offer a multidisciplinary look at secularism around the world. So far, says Anna Chang, a college spokeswoman, three students have declared an interest in pursuing the major.
Harrisburg Area Community College
Major: Auctioneering
Notable courses: The program requires two semesters of “Procurement and Appraisal of Merchandise” as well as a semester of AUCT 106: “The Auction.”
Details: This two-year program prepares students to sit for the Pennsylvania licensing exam for auctioneers. As an added bonus, it also prepares them to talk fasterthaneveryonetheyknow.
Kansas State U.
Major: Bakery science
Notable courses: “Cereal Science,” “Fundamentals of Food Processing,” “Principles of Milling”
Details: Why do Twinkies never go bad? How do you make bow-tie pasta? If those are the questions that keep you awake at night, you might consider a major in bakery science. Kansas State has a comprehensive program with separate cereal, pasta, dough, and baking laboratories, and its own commercial flour mill. The major requirements are also meant to separate the wheat from the chaff: Students must complete courses in macroeconomics, calculus, and organic chemistry to earn their diplomas.
