When I was at Ohio the students were able to create their own majors as long as it was approved by the Dean. I guess you can still do it.
https://www.ohio.edu/uc/bss /

The initial reason for this, I think, was for students who wanted to create their own major for certain fields where there wasn't a major available. For instance, I think one of my classmates did this and created a Sports Broadcasting major for themselves.

In one of the Ohio ads a student (don't know if she was an athlete) mentioned the specialized studies program. As I recall hers was in some kind of design area.

Back in the '70s Ohio had just the opposite: General Studies. It was basically a non-major major. One of my roommates didn't want to declare a major so he took the GS program. I don't see it listed anymore.

The degree to which that degree is willy-nilly depends heavily on the first line of the link Allen posted: "faculty-approved." Unless I'm remembering something else entirely, it goes like this: the student chooses that degree, plans out the courses, and then has to subtitle the BSS. Take the Sports Broadcasting or Sports Communications subtitle example. Given that name, the student has to get a faculty member(s) sign-off in the area(s) designated in that naming (so Comms and maybe Sports Mgmnt). The faculty should be looking at the courses the student plans to take and say, "Yeah, that makes sense," or not - and then endorse the student's plan or recommend changes to either the courses or the name. The amount of scrutiny used in that process is going to depend on the attitude of the faculty member, whether or not the department has an accreditation to maintain, and etc... At the end of the day, I believe the dean will also have to sign off on the degree too, but I suspect most deans are rubber stamping it because they trust that their faculty have done the due diligence.

I don't know how much easier a BSS is to get than any other degree. It would be one thing if you could just make it up as you go along, but in having to plan some courses years in advance, I don't know how one could know that they are going to be a breeze given all that could happen in that time. I guess if you were going for the easiest degree possible you would rely on word of mouth and the reputation of the profs and departments involved.

A student can use the BSS to "customize" a degree to meet a particular pursuit.

But,from the people I know at O.U.and other universities,,those students are few and far between.

The BSS is,from what I've been told,the easiest degree program O.U.
I believe they accept pretty much any on-line course.
As I said,its a great curriculum to keep athletes,most notably football and basketball (men and women) players eligible.

Also, My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night.

Let's face it: a big portion of time in any D1 football and basketball program is spent trying to keep players eligible. This kind of thing happens everywhere. In my first year in 1977 the coaches wanted to look at my schedule and thought it was little too rigorous. They wanted me to have an academic advisor "help" me plan my schedule. I politely declined and said I knew what I was doing. Back then, if you let them lead you, they would. Maybe it's more overt now, but I don't know.

My mother's brother's wife's sister's husband is a very famous person, and he agrees with you. ;-)

+1, Allen.

Except, wait, if you had read the post you would have understood that he was a prized recruit. (He received offers from every MAC school.)

So that's a minus 1.

And Frank was telling the kid he had a chance to start as a sophomore.

So that's another minus 1.

You need to post a few more to get back on the plus side for the day.

His major

I guess it's pretty serious.

I was thinking you were a guy that was bored on a friday who was making up stuff because your dog was boycotting you because you ate his last doggy biscuit, but you are actually dead serious. It is not just your customer's son's cousin, now you have confirmation from ex-football players that are reading the basketball site at the same time validating your customer's son's cousin's story. The ex-players did not reach out to any of the doubters, they reached out to you. I will look for the Robert Smith like article to come out a few days. Just last week, we did not know what specialized studies was, now we have a scandal on our hands. Dayam FS. Why?