A “good major”:
- develops a cognitive “home” from which to begin to interpret the rest of the world – a base of experiences and knowledge, fluency with a vocabulary, and methods of interpreting evidence, in relation to which unfamiliar subjects may become meaningful.
- develops the capacity for recognizing and interpreting connections, or “for applying learning from one context to another.”
- develops the capacity for analyzing evidence and arguments, and interpreting experiences.
- develops an understanding of factors that condition knowledge, and of the origins and histories of ideas and methods in the subject area.
- includes “reflexivity” – the opportunity to return to something learned in the past and to reexamine it in light of further learning.
- includes learning in community, both by situating new knowledge in the context of the expertise of others, and by promoting the role of conversation in the learning process.
- cultivates “the capacity for relating academic learning to the wider world, to public issues and personal experience.”
- includes a culminating opportunity to synthesize a student’s various experiences in the major.