The High School University magnet is being redesigned to include a majors system in which students will be required to declare a specialty by the end of their sophomore year.

The changes are a response to last April’s audit of Manual’s magnet programs, which recommended changes to HSU.

The new majors include World Studies, American Studies, Web Design, Fashion, Consumer Science, Social Sciences, Humanities, Biopsychosocial Sciences, Life Sciences and Information Technology. Students who wish to design their own majors can present their custom curricula to the HSU committee for approval.

Incoming HSU students will be required to complete four elective courses in their respective clusters in order to graduate.  Courses taken in freshmen and sophomore years will be counted retroactively.

These new graduation requirements will only apply to incoming HSU students, so current students will not be asked to declare a major.

“This system will allow our HSU students to have a bit more of a focus,” said Magnet Coordinator Mr. Tim Holman (Social Studies). “By taking a concentration of at least four of these elective classes, they walk away able to say that they graduated with detailed knowledge in a specific subject area.”

Some current HSU students think the policy is too restrictive. “The new system sounds a little too forceful,” says Bailey Wojciak (10, HSU). “It’s very hard to set your classes when you don’t even know what you want to do when you grow up.”

Others think that the new system will help push students in the right direction while still offering flexibility. “The major system would be extremely beneficial for HSU kids because we have the most number of electives we can take,” said Lynn Ogawa (11, HSU). “This system can guide us to take specific electives.”