Jun 06, 2014 11:32 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

The latest option for a major at Brown University is going to require the utmost concentration and focus, but the school hopes students will come away with better self awareness and critical thinking.

According to USA Today, the Ivy League school is set to offer contemplative studies after the major was approved three weeks ago. Contemplative studies students will explore related philosophies, sciences, cultures and more.

"The Contemplative Studies Initiative is a group of Brown faculty with diverse academic specializations who are united around a common interest in studying the underlying philosophy, psychology, and phenomenology of contemplative experience, across time, cultures and traditions," the school wrote on its website.

Harold Roth, a professor of religious studies, is leading Brown's Contemplative Studies Initiative and he said students will examine the state of mind a person achieves through meditation. He told USA Today this state of mind is so focused that it is what a concert pianist experiences during a performance or what a baseball player does when preparing to hit a pitch.

"We hope to provide a program in which contemplative states can be understood and in which students can be taught to develop these states themselves," Roth said.

The contemplative studies concentration will take students through courses in cognitive science, religion, philosophy and more. Students within the major can also choose between a scientific or humanities route.

To get students acquainted with the major, "Introduction to Contemplative Studies" will feature a weekly lecture as well as a meditation lab. In the lecture, students learn about theory and philosophy behind meditation, but in the lab, they will practice it.

In the past, students have been able to concentrate in contemplative studies, though only 16 have done so because it required them to form their own study course, which required administrative approval. Making it an official major, Brown hopes to cut out those complexities.

"It's students interested in discovering more about themselves and learning what their potential might be as human beings, what's part of human nature, why people do the things they do to one another," Roth told USA Today. "It attracts students looking for sense of meaning, a sense of purpose in their lives, trying to understand themselves in the greater context of human lives."

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