ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the reader with the variety of innovative approaches to concentration. It examines three new arrangements for concentration—interdisciplinary majors, student-designed majors, and career-oriented majors—including examples and discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches. Indeed, if the major or concentration is mentioned in a discussion of undergraduate education, it is usually criticized for its unwarranted domination of the curriculum. In spite of the controversy, concentration or specialization has been and undoubtably will remain an essential component of the undergraduate curriculum. Nurtured by departmental interests and student concerns about the relationship between education and occupational choice, the major has become a central component of the undergraduate experience. Yet if concentration has recently enjoyed far more success than programs of general education, traditional patterns of concentration have also been subjected to scrutiny.
