At the end of our four (or five, or six or seven) years at USI, we’re shuffled across a stage where we will receive a piece of paper we’ve spent thousands of dollars on: our diploma.

Actually, we don’t receive our diploma until months after commencement but that’s an opinion for another day.

The day will come when your beautiful and expensive diploma will arrive in the mail, and you’ll lovingly adorn your new office with it.

People looking at the fancy piece of paper will know  you did, in fact, graduate from the University of Southern Indiana and what year you did so. What they won’t know, however, is what major you graduated with.

When a representative from the registrar’s office was asked why USI chooses not to list the  major on a students diploma, she responded  “We award the degree and not the major.”

For instance, if  a student receives a bachelor of science degree, that will be what is listed on the diploma.While this is a standard that many Indiana schools follow, it’s certainly outdated.

A student attends a university and picks a major to specialize in a certain field, hoping, when they graduate, they can get a job in that field. Many hours of hard work are poured into obtaining the right to be qualified to work in a field such as health care or education.

Why minimize the importance of this by omitting such an important detail from a diploma?  I am proud to be a soon-to-be graduate of USI but I am also proud to be a soon-to-be graduate of USI’s journalism program. This isn’t something someone would know by looking at the diploma I’m likely to receive in like six months.

Because, not only are we graduating from USI, we’re graduating from our respective programs, and that’s a feat that should be acknowledged.