It has been said by a wit somewhere that an expert is a person who knows more and more about less and less until he or she achieves the ultimate. At that point he or she knows everything about nothing. All joking aside, when you decide in majoring in a certain subject or field, you are obviously thinking about becoming an expert in the subject or field.
It is, of course, not true that when you achieve the ultimate, you know everything about nothing. For one thing, it’s probably not possible to know everything about any subject or field. Every person who is any good in any subject or field keeps learning new things till the end of his or her life. You should never think that you have reached the point where you “know it all.”
What usually happens in an undergraduate major is that the student gets introduced into the basics of the subject or field. The level of expertise gained is measured by the numbers that precede the names of courses.
There are 100, 200, 300, and 400-level courses. The last are sometimes offered in graduate school. After taking some introductory courses (in the 100 and 200-level areas), most of the courses an undergraduate student will take will be in the 300-level courses.
These 300-level courses, usually called upper-division courses, follow a logical sequence. In English, for example, courses in Chaucer or Shakespeare would fall into the medieval or Renaissance or Elizabethan categories, and ideally would be taken before going on to, say, courses in Restoration comedy or the rise of the novel in the 18th century. Then would come courses in Romanticism and the Victorian era. You can see the historical progression for a major in English.
Philosophy and history and religious studies might also follow this kind of logic, whereas in the hard sciences, physics or chemistry or biology, different criteria might apply. Your best bet is to look at the sequence of courses leading to a degree in any of the sciences and mathematics, or to see the criteria listed in you college or university’s bulletin.
What is common to all majors in any division of the arts and sciences is a logical sequence of courses that ideally are taken in the order suggested by the various schools. In any case, these courses move from the last to the most difficult, and they tend to build on one another, so as you slowly gain expertise in your chosen subject or field, you get more and more sophisticated knowledge in it.
There days there are even colleges and universities that offer degrees in general studies or in the liberal arts, without a specific major. These courses can take you to any kind of career that emphasizes a general kind of expertise. Business may come to mind, though – of course – there are school of business in many universities, and business can itself be a legitimate major of its own.
In fact, there is even a terminal degree in business for graduate students, the MBA, standing for Master of Business Administration. It’s counterpart in the humanities is the MFA, standing for Master of Fine Arts. Students interested in going into or teaching creative writing usually end with an MFA.
I am always looking online for tips that can help me. Thx!