Claudia Sanchez
Staff Writer
Each year USF tries to incorporate new majors and minors for the undergraduate program to further interest and drive new and existing students and their burgeoning interests.
USF added four new undergraduate majors and new undergraduate minors this year. The new majors and minors are: Urban Studies, Critical Diversity Studies, Kinesiology, and Data Sciences. The university is also offering a Collegiate Athletics graduate course online. Most of these majors are extensions of past classes and seminars. The Urban Studies major, for example, was preceded by an Urbanism freshman seminar.
The Urban Studies major focuses on learning why a city’s architectural planning, politics, socioeconomic background, and huge population can make a city thrive or crumble through a perspective of design and art. The major is highly based on history, sociology, and politics which lead to the creation of cities, and students are required to finish an internship and a capstone seminar.
Ian Sanger, a junior majoring in urban studies, said that he is really enjoying the major, and the classes are much more interesting than anything else he has ever taken at USF.
“I’m in [urban studies] because I took a freshman seminar class that was about San Francisco urbanism and it just really grabbed my interest,” Sanger said. He was a psychology major when arrived at USF, but he decided that wasn’t for him, and he switched to urban studies as soon as it was available. Sanger described the major as a combination of urban politics, design, and covering how urban areas are represented in art.
The Critical Diversity Studies major is based on a curriculum which emphasizes thinking about how the country is shaped by social categories and cues. This involves analyzing race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, citizenship, and socio-economic stature. The major involves taking history classes, diversity classes, and many classes about different cultural groups in the United States, as well as a capstone seminar.
Another new major is Kinesiology, however, it is not an entirely new major. Kinesiology used to be known as Sports and Exercise Science, but has updated its name. Kinesiology focuses on teaching students about the human body, particularly movement, promoting physical activity, and solving issues that arise from exercise. The major involves taking classes about organic chemistry, physics, anatomy, physiology, nutrition, and biomechanics.
“I chose kinesiology because I want to be a physical therapist which is best as a kinesiology major,” said freshman Jessica Manalang. “I love it so far; I’m still taking mainly the core, but the classes are a little different because they’re kinesiology based, like I’m taking a Statistics in Kineseology class. My favorite class right now is Anatomy because it’s really interesting, but at the same time it’s really hard.”
The new Data Sciences major involves training in mathematics, quantitative skills, programing, and solving issues in fields that work with data, such as economics and computer science. The curriculum involves taking classes in mathematics, computational data, and economics. This program leads to a 4+1 program which can end with a masters degree in Analytics.
These four new majors are available to enroll in for undergraduates at USF. All students must declare a major before they’ve completed 48 credits.
Nureen Khadr contributed to the reporting.
