I think some confusion has been caused by the use of the term a “real major.” Let me help shed some light on this. A “real major” is one that inspires awe in your peers because of the difficulty of course work. Now if you are not sure if you should be impressed by your friend’s degree, I’ll let you in on a Cal Poly secret.
You may not be aware, but there is a correlation between tassel hue (the color’s direction from white) and difficulty of major. Your tassel is displayed in the El Corral Bookstore by the chemistry section in courseware and you will be wearing this when/if you graduate.
Architecture and engineering tassels are a very distinctly dark color. Architecture and environmental design is a midnight purple and engineering is an orange so dark it appears red. On the other end of the difficulty of major scale, we have business and liberal arts. Very light tan, and white. Since white is the absence of any hue, it is, according to tassel theory, the easiest major to attain, effectively making it not a real major.
This evidence can be backed up by checking the statistics of those who graduate in four years by college. According to www.ipa.calpoly.edu, child development from the College of Liberal Arts leads the way as the easiest major followed by business administrations and theatre arts. The hardest are all concentrated around architecture and engineering. Thank you Cal Poly for giving those with real majors something to work for.
Justin McCarthy
Materials engineering sophomore