Collegiate Times

“The question I get a lot is what is the easiest major on this campus,” Howlett said. “My main role is to try and dispel the myths. I’ll say, ‘Well I don’t think it’s easy. You might want to do more research.’ And I can point out why. I tell them the easiest major is the one you are most interested in. There are no easy majors if the classes don’t interest you.”

And just where do players hear that particular majors are easy?

“Guys like to go with what they hear in the locker room,” Howlett said. “They have to be really careful with what they pick and sort. There is some good advice handed out and some bad advice handed out.”

Ammons added that athletes might put too much weight on their teammates’ opinions.

“They make a lot of decisions through peer conversations about things they enjoy studying, classes they enjoy taking,” Ammons said. “Sometimes students can rely too much on listening to what someone else is being successful in and it might not be what they are interested in.”

But athletes seeking easy majors, and consequently clustering with peers, may be part of a much greater flaw in the rules the NCAA has put in place to promote academic success.

Tim Parker, Tech’s assistant athletic director of compliance, outlined the NCAA’s rule on percentage-of-degree, which states that a student athlete must be 40 percent through their degree going into their fourth semester, 60 percent going into the seventh semester, and 80 percent going into the ninth semester.

Switching majors likely endangers an athlete’s eligibility.

“When you change degrees, the percentages get you,” Parker said. “So if you are struggling in one degree and want to maintain eligibility and switch over to earn more hours and increase your grade point average, it’s going to kill you with the

percentages.”

Parker added that degree shopping is nearly impossible for a student athlete.

“It’s very difficult to maintain your competitive eligibility,” Parker said. “In some cases we’ve had to apply for a waiver on behalf of that student.”

Parker said that on a given year, he sees one or two out of 550 student athletes apply for the waiver, which must be signed by the department head of the major where the student athlete wishes to transfer into.

The NCAA does not currently have rules and regulations in place to prevent athlete clustering or help students switch majors.

The NCAA did not return phone calls from the Collegiate Times.

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A version of this article appeared in the Feb 10 issue of the Collegiate Times.