If someone asked you right now to name three college degree programs I bet a bagpipe wouldn’t be the first answer to cross your mind, but Carnegie Mellon offers a degree in just that. In 2009 a graduate of Carnegie’s musical studies program made the news for being the only graduate in the US that year with a degree in Bagpiping.
With technological advances opening a world of possibilities, it seems more time on our hands for other pursuits is opening a whole new world of degree options that may more closely reflect hobbies than career goals.
If a kilt isn’t a good look for you, but you like crime shows like CSI, perhaps a degree in Computer Forensics would be a better fit. This program is designed to teach you how to find evidence in photos, or reconstruct hard drives, to provide digital evidence to be used in legal cases. Maybe the mystery you’d like to solve revolves around other life in the universe. If space is your place then a field-breaking degree in Astrobiology could have the first life-form found on one of Jupiter’s moons named after you.
Whether a sportsman-like degree in Bowling Industry Management or a macabre study in funerary mastery via a Mortuary Science Degree peeks your passion, the world of higher education is taking up some unconventional academic approaches.
But alongside the new and unfamiliar are degrees like Metalsmithing that harken back to the time of apprenticeships and when working with one’s hands was considered an artform. There seems to be something for almost everyone in this new line-up of choices when we ask ourselves what we want to be when we grow up.