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Writer's pictureJoanne Jacobs

'Performance of Self' as a college major? No, it's not a parody



Parody or reality? Yes, these are real New York University graduates who've designed their own majors. "The Performance of Self" is my favorite, but there are many others, usually with "sustainability" or "queer" in the title.


After liberal arts and humanities, the most popular majors at NYU are nursing, economics, information science and business.

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6 Comments


m_t_anderson
Jun 01

Not to worry. These Phoney-Baloney degree holders will get some blue state government sinecure or "arts" grant so the can spread their intellectual fertilizer on some small patch of the nation.

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Peter Lorenzi
Peter Lorenzi
May 31

"Liberal arts" and "liberal studies" usually host dozens of majors, from anthropology to zoology. "Business/commerce" -- often in a separate busines sschoolor college, usually contains five or more majors, including accounting, finance, managment, behavioral sciences, information systems, marketing, business economics, entrepreneurship and small business, operations management, and more. Managment science, economics, and information science are often part of the business school, as majors within business/commerce. Some univestiries have no undegraduate Ubusiness school, yet they may offer subjects like accounting, economics, entrepreneurship and management under the "liberal arts" college. American universities rarely have a universal system of classifying and establing majors, and deciding what qualifies as a 'major,' e.g., twelve required courses from 'within' the major, as well as using various,…

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buy
May 31

My kid's boyfriend graduated last year from NYU in Comp Sci, followed this year with an MS in Comp Sci, following up with MBA starting next year, all NYU. Not all kids there are doing this!


Ann in L.A.

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superdestroyer
May 31

Top 10 majors at NYU:


Areas of study2022 graduates


Liberal arts and sciences/liberal studies 7.1%

Research and experimental psychology 7%

Econometrics and quantitative economics 6.7%

Computer and information sciences 6.3%

Registered nursing/registered nurse 5.7%

Digital communication and media/multimedia5.4%

Business/commerce 5.2%

Drama and dramatics/theatre arts 4.9%

Cinematography and film/video production 4.7%

Management science 2.7%


I have always told the joke that virtually every student at MIT was the best STEM student at their high school but 50% of the freshmen will still end up in the bottom half of their class. The corollary is that every drama major at NYU was the star of their high school plays and musicals but they all can't be star in college.

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jsarcher72
May 31

"After liberal arts and humanities, the most popular majors at NYU are nursing, economics, information science and business."


Why should three of those four even require a baccalaureate degree?


Comments welcomed.

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rob
May 31
Replying to

I'm not sure I understand. Nursing definitely should require a degree. Economics should also. If information science is done for real, then it, too, is a real degree. I suppose we could argue about business as a degree, but learning how to write a business plan, how to read an anual report, and a host of subjects regarding operations all seem like college-level courses to me...

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