UW-La Crosse is ranked second for Midwest regional public universities in the 2006 edition of America's Best Colleges guidebook according to the U.S. News & World Report. Perhaps that is because UW-L offers 85 undergraduate majors in 44 disciplines. But which majors are the university's most popular?
Over the past three years, the five most popular majors in terms of total enrolled students were Biology, Psychology, Education, Pre-Education and Chemistry. "They shift each year relative to each other, but those five have consistently been the majors with highest enrollment," notes Teri Thill the Director of Institutional Research at UW-L.
Pre-Education students are counted separately from Education students who have been accepted to one of the Education programs. However, Education still ranks in the top five since UW-L was founded as an education college in 1909.
However, students often change their major several times throughout their college career.
The popularity of majors differ between undergraduates that declare the major and those who actually graduate with that degree. According to Thill, enrollment data includes all undergraduate students enrolled during a given Fall term.
Because students often have second majors for which they complete all the necessary coursework, each declared major or second major is counted separately. Degrees granted include all undergraduate students in a given academic year who receive their degree. As with enrollment data, second majors are counted separately, even though only one degree is granted per student.
So what are the most popular majors that people actually graduate with? In terms of number of degrees granted over the past three years, Marketing, Biology, Psychology, and Finance were the most popular. "Management rounded out the top five, but since then it has been supplanted by Education, which accounted for the most degrees granted in 2005," states Thill.
UW-L is also well known for its nationally accredited Business Administration and the accounting program. The students in this program scored No. 1 in the nation for the pass rate on the Certified Public Accountant Exam in 2002, and have been in the top ten for the past ten years.
The Science and Allied Health Fields as well as the Exercise and Sports Science disciplines are also thriving. The undergraduate archaeology degree is also unique to UW-L, as the only university offering it in the Midwest.
It is hard to define which majors are the least popular. "Some majors are small because they are subspecialties within a larger major (such as Biochemistry or International Business) or subject areas that people often take as minors (such as German or French)," comments Thill. But they do know which majors have had dramatic enrollment changes recently. "We've seen large growth in the number of both Accountancy and Biology majors in the past three years, and many other majors have experienced large percentage growth (e.g., Radiation Therapy, Biochemistry, Community Health Education, and Clinical Lab Science)," says Thill.
According to Career Services, 98.7 percent of all undergraduate majors in 2003-2004 were employed. But more importantly, for those still deciding on a major, how do these majors reflect the current job market? According to staff member Tim Tritch in Career Services, the job market is currently seeking professionals in the Allied Health fields such as therapy, like PT and OT and Radiation Therapy. "Business degrees especially in accounting are in very high demand as well as computer science and information systems," notes Tritch.
Another bit of advice for students who have not decided on a major is to declare a Pre-Professional area. "We have a relatively large and growing number of students (approximately 10 percent of undergraduates in Fall 2005) who have declared one of many possible Pre-Professional second majors (e.g., Pre-Physical Therapy, Pre-Medical, Pre-Nursing, etc.)," notes Thill.
However, students can't graduate with a degree in their Pre-Professional area, declaring it as a second major makes it easier for students and faculty advisors to track progress toward requirements for admission into post-undergraduate professional programs.
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