Think UC Irvine and most often what comes to mind is science, computers and engineering. New programs in neurobiology and molecular biology. Nobel Prize winners in physics and chemistry.
But by far the largest number of the 4,010 undergraduate degrees awarded today will be handed out not to budding scientists but to seniors from the School of Social Sciences, which contains the disciplines of economics, political science, psychology and sociology. In fact, the proportion of students receiving bachelor's degrees in social sciences has grown from 28.6% in 1994 to 38.2% this year.
"That growth is substantial and the most dramatic feature of UCI enrollment," said William Schonfeld, the dean of the School of Social Sciences.
Meanwhile, the number of students receiving degrees in biological sciences plummeted during that period from 22.5% to 13.6%
The trend doesn't seem to have reached other universities. At UC Berkeley, for instance, the proportion of students receiving social-science degrees has remained a steady 25% for at least two decades.
The answer to what is happening at UCI appears as varied as the people you ask, from the cyclical nature of student interests to a return to the natural order of things. Even long-timers at UCI, with knowledge of past trends, give different answers.
Schonfeld said UCI's reputation for science and technology has its advantages when it comes to fund-raising. "People are more likely [to] give $100 million for a cancer center than $5 million for a center on race and poverty," he said.
The social sciences traditionally have turned out the most university graduates across the country. For starters, less of that icky math is required, and many students who can't cut the hard sciences turn to psychology or anthropology. That could explain why there are more social-science students than those interested in biology when freshmen start at UCI.
Furthermore, social-science majors traditionally are the ones that prepare students for futures in public policy, law, business or counseling.
At UCI, the removal of caps on the number of psychology and economics majors, which existed for several years in the '90s, is responsible for part of the growth in social sciences. But the School of Social Sciences is more than those two subjects.
