Designing My Major at a Liberal Arts College
October 15, 2025
Can't find the major you want? Learn how a student designed a Disability Studies major, blending academics, activism and career prep through the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies (CIS) at Davidson College.
About the Author
Rui Rui Bleifuss ’26 is a Disability Studies major through the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and Chinese Studies minor from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is a Lead Senior Admission Fellow, President of the Davidson Disability Alliance (DDA), Co-Chair of Students Interested in Inclusive Academics at Davidson (SIAD), and a Chidsey Leadership Fellow.
During the college application process I knew two things: 1) I wanted to go to college and 2) I wanted to study disability. However, I did not know what that might look like. None of the schools that I was considering had a formal Disability Studies major, so I thought I would be a biology major on the pre-medicine track. I believed that being a doctor was my only way to study and advocate for disability. I quickly pivoted to the pre-law track, because I realized I could lobby and make policy changes around disability. Then, I found the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies (CIS) at Davidson and realized I could do a student-designed Disability Studies major.
During my second semester of college I took ENG 374: “Picturing Disability” with Prof. Ann Fox and realized what a Disability Studies major could look like. We spent the semester examining disability as an identity—a source of knowledge and creativity. We blended my love for activism and interest in academia by using both formal scholarship and works from disability activists to inform our discussions. We brought in various ways of thinking from biology, English and sociology.
Towards the end of the course, I asked Prof. Fox if she would be my advisor, and we worked together to find courses that could count towards my major. Over the summer I spent hours searching the Davidson course catalog looking at previous courses that had been offered and determining when they would be offered again, and if they aligned with my major. It was through that process that I discovered SOC 236: “Sociology of Disability” with Prof. Kapriskie Seide and was lucky enough to take it in the spring of my sophomore year. That course offered a quantifiable approach to examining disability that had been missing, so I asked her to be my second advisor. By then I needed to officially declare. As a CIS major, I had to apply to the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, so I submitted a proposal of at least 10 courses I would take (which Prof. Fox and Prof. Seide helped me curate), confirmation of my advisors, and a short statement on the reasoning and rationale behind why I was creating my own major.
As I am writing this blog post, I am gearing up to embark on my senior thesis, which will serve as the culmination of my journey as a Disability Studies major. Since then I have been able to take many different Disability Studies courses like ANT 241: “Disability and Difference” and ENG 271: “Disability in Literature and Art.” I have also been able to apply what I have learned inside the classroom to work as an intern with a disability justice organization, AmplifyMN, and present my work with them at an international conference. Looking back, as a first-year, little did I know about the immense amount of autonomy, creativity, opportunity, and support I would have when designing my major. Now I am looking forward to continuing studying disability in graduate school. I don't know where my career will go from there, but I know that using my creativity to design my own major will be a valuable tool in any of my future endeavors.
