The University of Massachusetts Boston is known for being one of the most diverse colleges in the country, and provides many different majors for their students. According to Niche, UMass Boston is ranked 22nd as the most diverse college in America. With UMass Boston being amongst one of the most diverse colleges in the country, have you ever wondered what some of these culturally and racially diverse students might be majoring in?
According to the Office of Institutional Research at UMass Boston, there are a total of 16,259 students at UMass Boston, with 12,871 being undergraduate students and 3,388 being graduate students. In this article, only the most popular majors amongst the undergraduate students will be focused on.
Sources:
https://www.niche.com/colleges/search/most-diverse-colleges/?page=2 https://www.umb.edu/editor_uploads/images/oirp/TABLE31-Undergraduate_Majors.pdf
Being a second-year student at UMass Boston—but this semester is my first on campus—I have been able to notice what some of the majors are of the people around campus, whether it is my friends or classmates. From this, I have observed that some students are majoring in Nursing, Psychology, Biology, Communications, Physical Therapy and Political Science; I am an English major, which is not one of the most popular majors, unfortunately. From this perspective, we can assume that many undergraduate students at UMass Boston are trying to make the most out of their college degrees and are majoring in subjects that can help change the world into a better place and help others. Although we simply can’t base the most popular majors based on my observations, of course, actual studies were done by the Office of Institutional Research at UMass Boston. Unfortunately, data has only been collected from Fall 2020, so it all might not be still accurate as of Fall 2021. According to their data, out of the six colleges at UMass Boston, the top three colleges with the most undergraduate students are the College of Liberal Arts, the College of Science & Mathematics, and the College of Management. The College of Liberal Arts consists of 3,994 undergraduate students with the top three majors being Psychology, Criminal Justice and Economics. The College of Science & Mathematics consists of 3,184 undergraduate students with the top three majors being Biology, Computer Science and Information Technology. Lastly, the College of Management consists of 1,985 students with the top three majors being Accounting, Finance and Marketing. The top three most popular overall undergraduate majors are Biology, Psychology and Exercise and Health Sciences. The data given by Niche on the most popular majors at UMass Boston was fairly similar to the top three majors, listed as Business, Psychology and Biology. I found this very interesting because a couple of my observations about Biology and Psychology being some of the most popular majors on campus were pretty accurate, according to the data provided by Niche and the Office of Institutional Research at UMass Boston. But why exactly might these majors be so popular amongst undergraduate students studying at UMass Boston in the Fall of 2020?
Perhaps it is because these are the majors where students will most likely be able to graduate knowing that they will find a job easily. Or maybe it is because these majors pique their interest the most. Whatever it is, I’m sure their reasoning is very interesting, and perhaps maybe sometime in the future, these students can be interviewed and answer some questions as to why they chose these majors.