The Curb Center at Vanderbilt

Tepper, Pitt release leading report on double majors

Sociologists Richard Pitt and Steven J. Tepper have just released the results of a national study that examines the rise of double majoring on university and college campuses.  With some institutions seeing rates of double majors at or above 50 percent, this timely report explores why students double major, what types of double majors are most prevalent, and how studying two majors impacts students’ academic and extracurricular lives.  The report reveals important insights about the links between double majors and inequality, creativity, and student identity;  it discusses challenges to integrative learning; and it describes how different disciplines — the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and foreign languages – benefit differently from the double major phenomenon.

George Kuh, Chancellor professor emeritus at Indiana University, describes the study as a “thorough an exploration of a phenomenon that for quite some time has been in plain sight but effectively ignored: the nontrivial number of undergraduate students completing requirements for two majors.”

The 5-year study, Double Majors: Influences, Identities, and Impacts, conducted by the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy, was supported by a grant from the Teagle Foundation.

Click here to download the full report:

Double Majors:  Influences, Identities, & Impacts

Click here to read an article on the report in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Click here to read a Vanderbilt News Service article on the research and report.

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