I recently graduated! I completed my undergraduate career at New York University in a program called Gallatin School of Interdisciplinary Studies. Essentially, I made my own major. For the last two years of my undergraduate career I had the utmost autonomy when it came to choosing classes and subjects that related to my created concentration: The Psychological and Social Causes and Effects of Storytelling.
The only requirement was that I had to defend what I had spent the last several semesters doing before an academic panel. I chose 20+ books, films, articles, etc that I felt represented my course of study and I wrote a 9 page paper about my academic journey. After this, I had an hour and a half discussion with this academic panel of professors in order to prove that I was familiar with all the material and that I had used my freedom and time well.
I worked very hard on the paper and the list and I've decided to share it here. It represents a long, illuminating journey for me. I am not the same person that entered NYU four years ago. I have learned so so much and grown so so much and I could not be more grateful. It is my privilege to have been able to spend so much time thinking about and examining what it is I am most passionate about: stories. I hope you can get something out of my final undergraduate project!!
Best,
Taylor
Thanks for reading! <3