They Cut That? 9 Strange Discontinued Majors

Recent budget cuts have led several universities to discontinue prominent majors. SUNY Albany took the axe to language and classic studies, and a number of Pennsylvania State campuses dismissed such keystones as Latin American studies, biological and physical studies and more. But some seemed to use reductions in state funding to engage in an academic spring cleaning -- finally ditching those majors that failed to attract enough student interest.

Below, 9 discontinued majors that made us wish we knew we could even study such topics.

Care to defend one of these, or alert us to something big that we missed? Share below!

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Carson-Newman College: Leisure Science

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Although you wouldn't know it from the department's website, the leisure science major no longer exists at Carson-Newman. Interested students can instead major in physical education -- and concentrate in recreation.

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Although you wouldn't know it from the department's website, the leisure science major no longer exists at Carson-Newman. Interested students can instead major in physical education -- and concentrate in recreation.

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Why was that even there? How could they drop that?

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Comments

[David B Wetzel]

03:58 PM on 11/01/2010

While it is true that Mansfield University of Pennsylvania discontinued its program in “music merchandising,” it actually did so in 2006 while replacing it with a more robust and flexible program that better serves student needs. The degree is a “Bachelor of Music with Elective Studies in Business,” and while receiving professional training in music, students have their choice of elective tracks in business administration, management, or marketing. To that program, we added a second concentration in music technology. Following their coursework, our students intern for a full semester in the music industry. Recent placements include the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Company, and numerous talent agencies, recording studios, music retailers, and smaller arts organizations. Students do not “have to look elsewhere.” They can look at our web site to see immediately which programs we actually offer: http://music.mansfield.edu/

Dr. David B. Wetzel
Associate Professor of Music
Coordinator of Music Business & Technology Studies
Mansfield University of Pennsylvania

[JumpySnark]

12:07 AM on 11/04/2010

MSU is such a beautiful school, wish I could enroll in this program!

[DoctorABC]

04:06 AM on 10/23/2010

I think I can add a "They dropped that?!" major: University of Texas PanAmerican-- an university less than 30 miles away from Mexico--drops... international business relations. How much closer to a foreign country does a school have to be to consider international relations?

[MikeElPaso]

12:57 PM on 10/25/2010

29 miles.

[NonConforming]

04:25 PM on 10/22/2010

Most non-science degrees are as good as toilet paper.

[TheronC]

08:51 AM on 10/29/2010

Yeah, that whole critical thinking, communicating, understanding human society stuff -- waaaay overrated.

[rjaxone]

12:52 AM on 10/22/2010

A masters degree in professional growth? What would you study? > How to stand in an unemployment line while you grew two inches...

[Arrive2 net]

11:51 PM on 10/21/2010

Some of these majors would seem to be more marketable than the rare majors describe in this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com//her-campus/college-majors-you-never-_b_768978.html. Maybe some of the majors were too narrow, maybe you could major in Communication instead of Corporate Communication. Some of them may have had too much competition from the same majors offered by other schools. Universities have to flexible in this day and age, to keep up with competition, technology, and changing tastes.

Bernard Schuster
Arrive2.net

[DrSnuggles]

04:28 PM on 10/21/2010

Master's in Professional Growth

Okay, obviously this is a discipline relating to HR/staffing and probably legitimate. But that name is horrible - it sounds like "I may not be a 'doctor' but I have a PhD in pain".

[MikeElPaso]

01:03 PM on 10/25/2010

Agree Dr S.,

Sounds like a systematic way for mentoring professionals. Every university should offer that and every professional should have access to mentoring.. Agree that it should be a subset of a Human Resources degree.

[Jovan Givens]

04:23 PM on 10/21/2010

My philosophy program was cut in Louisiana, shocking I know.

[CosmicIrony]

01:46 PM on 10/21/2010

Most of these look legitimate enough as areas of study. I suspect the programs were dropped due to lack of student interest, probably because the people that want to pursue careers in those fields found other schools to attend.

Tourism, leisure, music, television, all of these are huge businesses that need capable people with decent educations. Easy to make fun of someone for studying "tourism", but it's a huge market and the students are not learning to be tourists, they are learning to serve the tourist market.

[nootrope]

12:38 PM on 10/21/2010

Environmental Humanities seems like it would be a great program. I can think of many useful topics of study just off the top of my head, from the environmental racism we know exists and is rampant among US polluter corporations to the geopolitical issues surrounding forced fossil fuel dependency and the devastating impact it's having both on human populations (e.g., Iraq, premature death from particulate matter) and the environment (global warming and climate change, destruction of species, and on and on).

[eepah]

11:21 AM on 10/21/2010

They still offer TV/Radio at my alma mater.

[PaxtontheMeek]

10:45 AM on 10/21/2010

While most of these seem to be silly, A Masters in Tourism seems like quite a beneficial thing in some circumstances. I mean, it would be better than just letting an Ad Man who was yesterday trying to figure out how to make women want to wear underroos run your campaign...

[skantea]

12:00 AM on 10/22/2010

In defense of Ad men, it's the copywriters job to do research in order to figure a "way into" the product.
Tourists aren't hard to figure out,. the majority just want to feel comfortable/secure wherever they go. Targeting the demographic most likely to by product X could take more thought, although an "umbrella idea" that takes multiple demos into consideration would work easily.
Advertising isn't hard which is why it's such a cut-throat industry to get into and then survive.
Also, it's not a place for real artists, it's a place for smart salesmen.

[All4ME]

10:33 AM on 10/21/2010

Laugh if you want, but there are lots of jobs in therapeutic recreation -- in nursing homes, schools and other places -- it's hard to get a job doing this without the ed. background and cert.

[PCPrincess]

09:56 AM on 10/21/2010

At the local community college here, what was once one of the fastest-growing sectors in the community 14 years ago, is now longer being offered as a major: Paralegal Studies.

[loki]

11:07 PM on 10/21/2010

yeah, and in a few years nursing, medical billing, criminal studies, and computer technologies will too. We will have to many nurses , but not enough jobs due to budget cuts by hospitals. Most medical billing is over seas now anyway. Criminal justice is a supply and demand thing to. Only so many openings as they mostly teach forensic in these courses, not police type studies. And computer tech because they are becoming more plug/play/trash computers, and most programming and It is now outsourced to the lowest bidder. I think we all know what that means.

[AngusC]

06:44 AM on 10/21/2010

Whew, Underwater Basket Weaving was saved.

[blueballs]

06:12 AM on 10/21/2010

Not ONLY does California University of Pa. refer to themselves as "Cal", their school color is red. It is enough to make an alum of the REAL Cal see such. If you're gonna steal our name, at least have the common decency NOT to associate it with the stench of Furd red.

First, fUCLA steals our fight song and bastardizes not only our mascot but our colors, now THIS?? There oughta be a law ...

[bmcombs]

07:54 AM on 10/21/2010

Indiana University of Pennsylvania does the same thing to Indiana University Bloomington...the lettering in suspiciously similar to IUB and utilizes the same colors. Clearly not by accident. I have never met someone from "IUP" but I imagine that I would not be wholly impressed.

[considerthis]

08:58 AM on 10/21/2010

I'm an IUP grad. Now a judge. I know, not very impressive to you.

BTW - The U of PA system schools are named for the towns they are in. Just as valid as being named for a state.

[acrossthewalls]

07:58 PM on 10/21/2010

If only I could sing you the CalU jingle through comments, it's both adorably bad and blatantly not trying to rip off anything even remotely related to the state of California or any universities there. Incidentally, a few quick google searches will tell you that CalUP is actually older than California State University :) So who's ripping off who now?