Major Types

• Open Admission: Students in good academic standing are admitted at any time.
• Selective/Minimum Requirements Admission: Requires students to complete satisfactorily a set of prerequisite courses with a minimum GPA. All students who meet the minimum requirements are admitted.
• Capacity-Constrained Admission: Students must complete all of the minimum requirements to apply. Admission is not guaranteed because space is limited. These majors often have application forms and application deadlines; some of them require standardized tests, recommendations, and/or interviews.

Most of the humanities division only has open or minimum requirements majors. The one capacity constrained major is the Creative Writing option for the English major. Learn more about humanities majors here.

A quick reference guide for majors is available here.

Declaring a major or minor

You can find the forms needed to help students declare a major or minor here.

The initiating adviser will designate all departmental signatures required to process the change. The initiating adviser will receive a copy of the form after all designated recipients have signed. Advisers should choose the appropriate template based on the number of adviser or departmental designee signatures required to authorize the change. For example, if a student requests to drop a major from one department and add a major in a different department, the adviser from the current department would choose the “two departmental signatures” version of the form.

Pre-major extensions

Students with this registration hold, who are not able to declare a major, will need to work with their pre-major adviser on a Pre-major Extension or PME. A PME is an education tool design to support a student's informed choice of and preparation for a major. PMEs are granted at the discretion of a student's academic adviser and are typically granted for one quarter. This will typically be handled by Undergraduate Academic Advising.