印第安納大學與普渡大學印第安納波里斯聯(lián)合分校

While the needs of most students are well served by existing majors offered on campus, some students have academic interests that do not fit well into existing programs or traditional disciplinary boundaries. The Individualized Major Program (IMP) in the School of Liberal Arts meets the needs of such students. It serves disciplined and self-motivated students who may wish to major in traditional disciplines or interdisciplinary areas for which majors are not available at IUPUI, as well as those who wish to fashion unique and original interdisciplinary majors that reflect their individual experience, interests, and needs. These include students whose work and life experiences suggest the need for fresh ways of organizing existing courses into meaningful new majors, as well as innovative students who wish to bring together course work in several disciplines to focus on a thematic area or make unusual yet valid connections between areas that are rarely studied together. The IMP can also serve transfer students who wish to continue work started elsewhere in areas in which IUPUI has faculty expertise but no organized majors.

Unlike other majors which prescribe a fixed area of study, the individualized major provides a structure that allows such students, in consultation with faculty members, to design their own majors on various topics and fields of study. Each major course of study varies in accordance with the needs and interests of individual students. Students work closely with faculty advisors, and all individualized majors are overseen and approved by a faculty committee that ensures each student-designed major has intellectual integrity and rigor.

The specific learning outcomes of students graduating with an INDIVIDUALIZED MAJOR will vary according to the specific content of the courses of study they design, but all IMP students completing their Individualized B.A. program will achieve the following:

• Know a coherent body of knowledge and theory in a discrete area of study they have defined.
• Understand approaches to knowledge and methodologies employed in the different disciplines and sub-disciplines included in their major plans, and appreciate the value and limitations of each.
• Be able to communicate what they have learned and understood in writing, orally, or another medium of their choice.

Some may have begun to operate effectively in an appropriate professional setting connected to the major. With judicious selection of courses included in their majors and other coursework students may be able to qualify for graduate or professional programs that might not otherwise be open to them through other majors at IUPUI.