Economics Leads In Popularity In '45 Concentration

Reversing last year's heavy trend towards English as a field of concentration. Economics moved from third place with 85 men to a leading position with 113 concentrators, while the allied field of Government was a close second with 108 men, tabulations of Freshman fields of concentration revealed yesterday.

The greatest drop is in the field of English, where the number of men fell from last year's leading position of 120 to fifth position with 66. English was shoved back by the phenomenal rise of Biochemical Sciences from 48 to 84 for third place. Chemistry, with a steady increase, brought its number up to 71 for fourth place. On the heels of English was Physics, showing almost a 300 per cent rise from 19 to 62.

Sciences Lead in Numbers

Taken by areas, the Natural Sciences led with about 450 concentrators, followed by the Social Sciences with 350, and Arts, Letters, and Philosophy with about 170. Nearly everyone of the Humanities showed a decline, while all the sciences, except Mathematics, showed great increases.

Modern languages remained steady with a general decline of from one to two men, while the Classics fell heavily from 16 to 7. The largest combinations field, History and Literature, lost nine men; but History and Science moved from no men at all to two, while Mathematics and Economics gained three new students.

In addition to English, the new field, Area of Social Science, which began last year, dropped from 36 to 14 men. History, in fourth position last year, has lost 14 men and moved down the scale to tie with Engineering Sciences for seventh place.

A total of 971 men indicated their fields of concentration Friday, an increase of 42 over last year. Fourteen students said that they would be unable to return, and a total of 46 cards were not handed in at all.