While heavy competition and rigorous courses are an expected part of impacted majors, many students feel uneasy about encountering the chaos for the first time next fall.
Starting fall 2010, 12 additional majors will be impacted at Cal State Long Beach. The majors are biology, communications studies, design, English, history, industrial design, interior design, journalism, exercise science, liberal studies, political science and sociology, according to the impacted majors list on the CSULB Web site.
They will be added to the list of 11 other majors that are already impacted at CSULB: art, studio art, College of Business Administration — all majors — criminal justice, film, radiation therapy technology, athletic training, kinesiotherapy, nursing, psychology and social work.
Some students see a bleak future knowing their classes and competition will increase in numbers, while others were not even aware their major was becoming impacted.
“I am very frustrated,” said Zainab Oystol, a junior majoring in nutrition and dietetics. “As an older student I wanted to take the classes needed and graduate as quickly as possible. Now it is going to take probably five years before I graduate, and I have to take some classes that are not helping with the degree just to keep my student status.”
Senior industrial design major Joe Reed already feels the pressure of his major through the limited size of the art department’s studios. He said the department “already has a ‘weeding out’ process and doesn’t really need another.”
“The fact that it takes six to eight years to graduate and that we have a portfolio review that you must pass to finish the last two years seems like enough to me,” he said. “The fact that we are impacted is just another straw on the camel’s back — how many more until it breaks and we disintegrate about the best degree on our campus?”
Other students welcome the extra competition, hoping CSULB’s newly impacted majors can “weed out” the weak and uncommitted students while allowing the dedicated workers to easily move to the top.
“It sucks, but at the same time it can be a good thing,” said Devon Newberry, a junior film major. “If [a department] takes too many people in, the quality gets diminished.”
Andrew Gomez, a junior political science major, said he is simply “happy that so many kids want to do it.”
“It might discourage people from choosing that major since it will be harder to get in,” he added.
Students such as Sally Key, a junior pre-graphic design major, thinks it’s almost essential to have a backup plan with how the state budget is affecting its public universities.
She said she plans to attend San Jose State if she cannot enroll in CSULB’s graphic design program, even if “the program there isn’t as good as this one.”
“It’s a good thing that only serious people get in because it seems that some people choose the subject just ‘cause it sounds like fun,” Key said. “It’s hard work, but it’s worth it.”
Junior biology major Nathan Long said he is not bothered and is “going to work just as hard to be the best.”
“The world is a competitive place, you have to work hard to be able to succeed,” Long said.