All students must meet the Degree and University Requirements.
All students must meet the Catamount Core Curriculum Requirements.
All students must meet the College Requirements.
Major Requirements
The Individually Designed Major (IDM) is a nondepartmental, interdisciplinary major for those College of Arts and Sciences Bachelor of Arts candidates whose academic interests are not met by the major programs currently offered by the college. An IDM may not be a program of narrow professional training, nor should it consist of a grouping of loosely associated courses. Rather, it should be a carefully crafted, coherent curriculum allowing the student to concentrate in a unique area of study. An application to pursue an IDM is required; see details in the table below. For more information, contact cas@uvm.edu.
At least 36 and not more than 45 credits in major courses, including:
| APPLICATION | ||
| An application to pursue an IDM should be approved by the CAS associate dean responsible for IDM advising, subject to the oversight of the CAS Curriculum Committee, before the end of the candidate’s junior year and before 18 credits of the proposed major are completed or begun. | ||
| To accommodate the possibility that selected courses may not be offered at a given time, a student’s application should include 1 alternate course in the core and 2 alternate courses in the elective list. | ||
| FACULTY SPONSOR. Students must have a faculty sponsor to have their application for an IDM approved. The sponsor will serve as faculty supervisor of the senior project. The department of the student's faculty sponsor shall be considered the home department of the student's major. | ||
| COURSES | ||
| CORE. 15 credits at the 2000-level or above. | 15 | |
| ELECTIVES. 18 credits. | 18 | |
| SENIOR PROJECT. Choose 1 of the following: | 3-6 | |
3 credits of Undergraduate Research (x995) in the faculty sponsor's department, in which the student submits to a committee of 3 or more professors a paper or an equivalent project that demonstrates the essential coherence of the IDM. The evaluation committee will include the student's advisor and at least 1 representative from another academic department with courses included in the core of the IDM. | ||
6 credits of CAS 4996: Honors | ||
| ADDITIONAL CREDITS. Up to 9 additional credits. | 0-9 | |
| COURSE RESTRICTIONS | ||
| At least 6 credits must be at the 3000-level or above. | ||
| No more than 6 credits of Internship (x991), Independent Study (x993), and/or Undergraduate Research (x995) may be included in the major. | ||
| No more than 12 credits may come from subject prefixes offered outside the College of Arts and Sciences. | ||
Pre/Co-requisites
Introductory and intermediate courses for various subject areas may be necessary to reach some of the courses that can be applied to the major.
Other Information
In the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), only one course may overlap between a major and a minor or between two CAS majors.
Courses for the major and/or its pre/co-requisites that are cross-listed in the catalog or schedule of courses under another course prefix may be taken under that other prefix and still count for these requirements.
With the approval of the chair/director, courses that applied to the major in previous years but have since been deactivated may be applied to this year’s major requirements if they are reactivated.
For a Bachelor of Arts degree, no more than 45 credits in courses with the same departmental prefix may be used toward completion of the 120 credits required for graduation.
At least half of the credits used to complete major requirements must be taken at the University of Vermont.