The College of Arts & Sciences offers no fewer than 56 possible majors, ranging from the obscure to the well-known. Curiously, Washington University does not offer a major in writing. This is a surprising omission on the part of the University, and one that ought to be corrected.

In my view, it is nothing short of bizarre that the University does not offer students the option to major in writing. This is not due to my own passion for the discipline, but rather because of the sheer number of classes that are designated as L13, or English Composition; no fewer than 29 courses were offered this semester in that category. In contrast, the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities has only 12 courses listed this semester, and classics, which has been a part of the University in one form or another since its founding, offers only 11, after discounting Senior Project and Study for Honors. Even biology, the major to which Wash. U. pays the most attention, including every listed course from Independent Work, to Research, to Doctoral Nonresident only offers 2.86 times as many courses as are listed under English Composition. The University already offers more than enough courses than might be needed for a writing major. All that would be needed would be to organize them appropriately and to draw up a few requirements in order for writing to become a major of its own.

However, even if Wash. U. offered far fewer courses in English Composition, it would still have reason to formulate a writing major. The English major already dovetails with writing so well that, according to the department, “a student with a special interest in writing may count toward the major up to nine upper-division units from a selection of these courses (designated E[nglish] Comp[osition]).” For its part, a writing minor, with a few technicalities, requires only 15 units designated as English Composition, and since the majority of these can be counted toward a major in English, English majors are already heavily incentivized to pursue such a minor.

If one were to remove English Composition courses from Wash. U.’s roster, the English department would still be huge. It is one of the University’s largest, and frequently spills over from its main building, Duncker, into the adjacent Ridgley. The number of students who have the ability to minor in writing is therefore tremendous, and if a major was added that continued to allow the overlapping credits, the number of potential writing majors would already be significant. I, for example, decided to major in English because I love to write, and an English major was the closest I could come to devoting my college years to writing.

Washington University needs a writing major. It already offers more than enough courses, and there are enough students who, intentionally or otherwise, have taken enough classes that count toward that pre-existing minor to make it worthwhile. Even if interest in writing was all but non-existent, the University offers enough classes that a small reorganization is all that is necessary to create a writing major. That such has not already been done is incomprehensible.