I dunno, at my university your major wasn't terribly important but your college was. Each college had a separate application process in addition to the overall university application. Some majors, like mine, had application processes as well.

I had friends who got screwed because they applied University - College of Communications - Radio-TV-Film, and got accepted to the second but not the third. Except they didn't want to do Journalism or Advertising, so they had to wait a semester and then back out and re-apply to a different college to do something else.

Oh yeah,

How To Realize That Being Turned Down By A College Is Not The End Of The World

As a former employee of a pretty prestigious college, I would occasionally run into students or their parents who had been turned down by that college and who remained unaccountably bitter about it. I'm not saying it's not OK to be disappointed, but when you're halfway through the fall semester of your sophomore year at a university anybody would say is an excellent one, and you're still spitting nails because you didn't get into some other school that you had your heart set on, you really need to get over it.

The really amazing thing was that they felt compelled to unload on me about it. What did they think happened in the admissions office? "Yeah, this one looks great. But send his file over to Systems & Networking so Steve can check it out. We don't want to admit anybody without his say-so."

As an optional seminar to Steve's course,

If You Plan on Grad School, No One Gives a Crap Where You Did Your Undergrad Work

also, The Perpetual Student: Someday, You'll Wish For That 401k.

While your spouse is slaving away at an hourly job to feed the kids and pay the rent, you are in your 25th year of schooling, working on a dissertation entitled "Pre-Kievan Slavic Tribal Headgear and Its Impact on Catuvellaunian Oral History From 43-26 B.C."

Get a damn job. Maybe your kids would like to go to college someday?

Caveat to Clodfobble's course: Some prestigous schools will turn down excellent students for no other reason than that they came from a podunk school where the snooty, elite school's grad department didn't think the student got a good enough background for their royal highnesses. Happened to an outstanding student of mine at Fort Lewis College - straight A student and 800 scores on his GRE's. Colorado State University wouldn't accept him for one of their more prestigous programs just because he went to FLC. I don't what the aggies up at CSU were thinking. Buncha hicks!

The legacy of Al Yates, Ivy League wannabe. He and the ag board had delusions of grandeur, and completely gutted an industrial/agricultural vocational program that was world-renowned in favor of liberal arts greatness that they are totally unprepared to provide.

The Myth of Originality: dealing with subjects such as "i know you got your tee shirt at the goodwill and it doesn't make you special", "we all like spin magazine and it's obvious that you do too", "the fact that you discovered a band first does not make you interesting, nor the music they create good", "how to come up with an original viewpoint and present it intelligently","how to serve me my goddamn coffee without a hipster sneer and thereby avoid me dragging you across the counter and beating the emo out of you".

heh, sorry, i'm on a rant. this one too:

Masturbation: An Economic Comparison Between It And A $50 Dinner, $20 Shitty Movie, 1.5 Hours Of Uninteresting Conversation, And 0.2 Hours Of Mediocre Sex.

oh, and an important one:

Religion: Why No One Else Cares, Mind Your Own Goddamn Business

The Art of Listening
-- Identify the different levels of listening, from overhearing to attention to concentration
-- Why preparing your reply and active listening are mutually exclusive
-- The Value of Feedback
-- How to ask questions
-- Extra Credit: Show three or more examples of listening that do not require hearing.

Oh yeah, another:

--Searching Around for Gas that's $0.03 Cheaper is Retarded When You Spent $30 on Last Night's Dinner.

Personal Responsibility (Extracurricular, independent study required)
This course is a prerequisite for graduation to Adulthood.
-- Identifying "They" and "their" influence in your life
-- The variable reliablility of any mechanical system
-- Introduction to Plan B
-- The Importance and Value of Making a Mistake (prev titled "Acknowledgment")
-- Compare and contrast "Try, try again" and "Knowing when to quit" (prev titled "Balance")
-- How to avoid Neurosis (section waived for all students under 25)
-- Extra Credit: Demonstrate principles of PR in at least five of the following categories: Finance, Sexuality, Charity, Vehicle Maintenance, Physical Fitness, Family Relations, Civics (Local, State or National), Kindness to Strangers, Pet Care.

Idiots and incompetents on the job: recognizing and dealing with. One aspect of class will be identification of such among other students.

Optional material on the origins of such (nepotism, BS ability, school loyalty, EEO concerns).

Here's a fun one:
How to ask your friends and aquaintances to build a deck for you, without pay, because you are broke, while remembering not to talk about
a) Your recent vacation in switzerland
b) How you decided the extra 3 grand was worth it to get the composite decking material
c) How even though you bought the most expensive windows and bathroom fixtures, you felt they were a good value
and
d) That you are returning to switzerland for another go–around two months later and will be ready for them to start building the deck in the fall

Summa Cum Laude if you actually get anyone to build you a deck.

I can't wait for the cost-benefit analysis on that one. Do you go into the detailed comparison of modern on-line sources of, umm, visual stimulation, as compared to the more traditional glossy paper-based products?

I would follow this with:

The gift that keeps on giving: Why STDs will ruin your life
-- No, it's never a good idea
-- Understanding the inclination to lie, when intoxicated, about when you were last tested
-- A mathematical analysis of the Rule of 3 and how screwed you are after last weekend's one-night stand