As of 2 days ago, your girl is officially a Computing, Design, and Pedagogy major—a special major I created my damn SELF!

I applied to every college as a potential astrophysics major. When I started at Barnard, I was leaning towards doing something with computer science but had no idea what. I took classes in women’s studies, anthropology, psychology, economics, the list goes on. Nothing was clicking. Then I took an education class this past fall. It was the first class at Barnard I truly loved. I thought I had figured it out: I was going to major in computer science and minor in education.

Then I had a 5 hour conversation with the supervisor of one of my jobs at barnard (she’s a recent barnard alum, and now both a mentor and good friend of mine). I entered into that conversation planning on majoring in computer science and minoring in education, and left it feeling the most inspired I’d felt in my whole life, beaming with the new-found determination to create my own major.

I emailed my advisor. I emailed ~12 faculty members at barnard. I began pitching my major idea to them. I received much support, some discouragement, and tons of feedback. It slowly evolved. 2 months and a 13-page proposal later, I submitted it to the CPAS committee.

Through this process, I remembered back to my senior year of high school, right after I committed to Barnard. My interests were already starting to become more entrepreneurial, more education-focused. I told everyone I was majoring in “women in STEM”

Two and half years since then and a month and a half since I submitted my petition to CPAS, I am officially a Computing, Design, and Pedagogy major.

You are your future. You build the version of you and the world you want to live in every day. If you don’t vibe with any of the majors your school has to offer, create your own. - me from October

Let this inspire you to break the mold, fight against systems your school perpetuates that you don’t agree with (like majoring in something u don’t follow want to), and most importantly: follow your damn dreams!!!!!

Now go be little higher education revolutionaries and create ur own major🚀