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Undergraduate majors at the University of Chicago

Brian Leiter

A colleague directed me to this recent chart of majors of undergrads here at U of C: 

 In short, almost half the students are majoring in economic, biology or math.  But some of my colleagues think this is typical of national trends, with students gravitating towards majors that purportedly lead to jobs (or, I guess, business school or medical school–or law school, if you add in poli sci).  But barely 4% History majors, even though Chicago has one of the best history departments in the country?   If you look at the core humanities fields, they account for just 12% of undergraduate majors.  Do readers know of other data on undergraduate majors from other schools?

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5 responses to “Undergraduate majors at the University of Chicago”

  1. Brian Leiter

    From the government site on colleges, I found some related information, here from a top liberal arts college, Colgate University: 32% of students are majoring in social sciences (what proportion of that is economics as opposed to psychology or political science etc., I do not know); 13% major in biology; 6% in the physical sciences (meaning, I assume, all of physics, chemistry and maybe math?). By contrast, the liberal arts are doing a bit better at Colgate: 9% major in English and languages, while 8% major in history. No specific data on philosophy.

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  2. UChicago Grad

    I'm wondering if the econ percentage is just due to that fact that it's UChicago. There's definitely an econ subculture that you wouldn't find at a lot of other colleges. I know a lot of people who chose to go there in part because of the reputation of the the department.

    Also 3.6% philosophy majors strikes me as fairly high. According to the article, that would be around 130 majors. In contrast, the state school I'm currently at has three times as many students and many less majoring in philosophy. There are also over 100 total majors at UChicago, making philosophy and history top ~10%. I would be surprised if that's in line with a national trend, though perhaps it is among liberal arts colleges.

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  3. Amanda Greene

    I remember that when Debra Satz became Associate Dean at Stanford in 2010, she had someone pull these numbers. Enrollments in humanities majors (and classes) were alarmingly low and dropping, although I don't think the data was made public. There was talk of introducting "Computer Science & [Humanities]" double-major, but I think what actually happened is they introduced a "certificate" in Humanities, a designation that could be combined with a non-Humanities major:
    https://news.stanford.edu/2016/05/10/stanford-faculty-launch-new-humanities-core/

    This NYT article also has some numbers:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/education/as-interest-fades-in-the-humanities-colleges-worry.html?_r=0

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  4. UChicago undergrad

    Economics is definitely inflated at UC because of the department's reputation – both because many students apply in specifically for it and because it's the typical choice for undecided students. Conventional wisdom is that the humanities are deflated because the humanities majors' difficulty sends students who would usually do them to lighter majors with overlap, especially polisci for history and philosophy types.

    BL COMMENT: I'd be curious to hear why history is thought to be more "difficult" than political science. That surprises me.

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  5. HiMom

    UChicago's official quarterly report on number of undergraduates majoring in each field can be found here:

    https://registrar.uchicago.edu/page/quarterly-census-date-enrollment-reports

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