The phrase came to mind the other day as I was thinking about the “degrees” we offer at a university. While a completely different meaning of the word, there are still new directions and futures derived from the majors we offer and the diplomas we award. I like to think that our academic degrees are degrees of freedom. Programs of study offer possibility.

When I was a college student in the previous century, I was enrolled on a track to be an engineer. This opened an unexpected doorway into physics, the discipline where I discovered my passions lie. At about the same time, I met Karyn, an English student who took interest in me when she mistook me for a music major. That good fortune led to my degree in physics along with a life partner, rather than an engineering career and loneliness.

Along life’s many paths, we can’t predict subsequent turns. That physics degree got me into graduate school in physics, but I joyfully completed studies in education. Karyn’s degree in English landed her a job that would lead to upper management, supporting us early on to get into our first home — including the piano she bought for her mistaken musician — before she’d also twist toward teaching. (It worked well for this STEM student to lean on a breadwinner educated in the humanities.)

In my example, I found opportunity not via some great plan but because I had choices. This feels like part of our Western, Utah ethos: People succeed when we give them options and space, along with a little support. We do well when we aren’t so much in the business of creating job pathways as carving out human agency. Happiness and success aren’t wrapped up in a predestined track as much as they’re enabled by opportunities to be curious about the world and empathetic toward others.

But I need to admit that my sensibilities and my employment require that I am first and foremost concerned about the success of science majors. It’s my job to treat them as the most critical. I think I do a pretty good job preparing the folks who are launching themselves in these directions, including many starting this week in a gruesome five-credit physics course. It’s the kind of class that turns some people, like me, to study the field for a lifetime. For others, it’s just the opposite, and that’s great too.

For those who continue in the sciences, my best piece of advising is this: Take a creative writing course. And for those in the humanities: Take a microbiology course. We need those students to mix, to share perspectives and to broaden each others’ ideas; but we can only provide that when we offer programs in diverse fields of study. I once had a dentist who’d started in musical theater. And a former physics student of mine who is now my dermatologist (yup, it’s awkward) completed his undergraduate degree in English. I work directly with people in scientific fields who decide late in their degree that they will go into teaching instead of research and industry. And my intro physics courses often reveal interest from people from undecided camps in a science degree.

To me, the variation in routes and plans is wonderful. We are each much more than the things we do to make a living, especially as those change. Individual dimensionalities make us each more whole and make our collective more diverse and thoughtful. Our wide array of programs helps us recruit some of the finest faculty I know of anywhere in the country. Those teachers and scholars provide students with the opportunities they deserve. Maybe that’s a degree in physics, maybe a career as an engineer or maybe even the potential to be mistaken for a musician by the girl of your dreams. Those possibilities can exist when we enable our educational institutions with as many degrees of freedom as possible.

Adam Johnston is a professor of physics and director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education at Weber State University, where he helps prepare future teachers and supports educators throughout Utah. This commentary is provided through a partnership with Weber State University. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent the institutional values or positions of the university.