<p>is it possible/doable? would i still be able to have a life outside of academics?</p>
<p>Seems like a very busy deal!!</p>
<p>Sent from my ADR6350 using CC</p>
<p>I’m sure you know that pre-med isn’t a major, so if you want to eventually go to med school, it’s not necessary to major in a “pre-med” subject. Are you enrolled at Williams? Talk to a mentor or academic advisory about what classes you would need to take to get into med school and if that means you would have to declare a certificate or major. My gut tells me you’re fine as long as you take some “required” classes for any med school hopeful.</p>
<p>Astrophysics is one the hardest, if not the hardest, major at Williams, really, really intellectual kids, and a small major so can’t hide. Doing that and pre-med would be OK, because so many major requirements overlap with pre-med requirements, although it would be a lot of labs. Tossing in philosophy, which is one of the more difficult humanities majors with a lot of very time-consuming and challenging reading, would really make life very difficult as an undergrad. And between checking off all the double-major plus pre-med boxes, you’d leave very little room to explore the rest of the curriculum, which to me is one of the advantages of a liberal arts education. Why not just major in one of the two instead, take lots of classes in the other, and have a little more flexibility (not to mention a life) during college? If you are going to med school, not sure how it really benefits you to have a second major, in any event …</p>
<p>how about if i did an astronomy/philosophy double major + pre med? would my life be any better then? if my life wouldn’t be better, would it be more sensible to drop astronomy and do a phil major and just take lots of astronomy courses or vice versa?</p>
<p>You kids just like to throw around names of majors to sound real-l-l-l-y intelligent. If you want to go to med school, just concentrate on one major and do it right.</p>
<p>One question: do you hate sleep?</p>
<p>Hate to bump an older thread, but how rigorous would a double major in astrophysics and philosophy be without the pre-med? That’s what I’m looking to do. How’s that in relation to, perhaps, a philosophy minor?</p>
<p>^^ Well you are still taking some of the most difficult, energy-draining courses on campus. In terms of scheduling, it is very easy to double major (excluding pre-professional schedules)–about half of your overall credits would still be open for electives. But each are small, rigorous progams which place an enormous amount of responsibility on each student. You don’t want to find yourself having a psychotic break come finals period (which I think is a legitimate concern…). But on the other hand, if you are somewhat of a genius and philosophy and astrophysics will be your two lifelong passions, you should give it a shot. </p>
<p>It’s actually very rare to see a non-pre-med single major at Williams. (And pre-meds who do double major tend to pick biology or chemistry for one of the majors.) There are no minors at Williams.</p>
<p>^ That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the response! I do plan to stay in the university-realm researching astronomy/astrophysics while I pursue my music, so that’s a given, but I feel as if philosophy as a double major would bounce nicely off of the former. If it’s philosophy double-major or no philosophy, I’m going to take the double major.</p>
<p>Agree with Foxboro Piper that many of the most intellectual people at Williams major in astronomy/astrophysics/physics and philosophy (as well as religion, which is similar in many ways to philosophy as an academic discipline), as well as math, which has a lot of overlap with astrophysics. The choice is certainly NOT a double major or nothing, you could easily take as many philo classes as you wanted without majoring, no problem getting into those courses as non-major at Williams. But really, there is no need to decide before you apply or even as a frosh. Most people end up changing their majors multiple times in their first two years. While exploring classes, you may end up loving both and deciding that a double-major is doable, or end up realizing that your passions lie elsewhere, as long as you take at least a few classes in each discipline in your first two years, you will be able to decide how you want to proceed after your sophomore year. (The only thing that really requires an early commitment is the pre-med track, since there are so many specific pre-med course requirements). So that is how I would handle it. </p>
<p>I do know that music / astrophysics is a doable combination, because one of my classmates at Williams was the lead conductor of the student symphony and a music/physics double-major, worked for some time after college as a composer and as a musician at an improv-comedy troupe while pursuing his Phd in theoretical physics, and now is an academic at, I believe, Oxford (or perhaps another university in England, he just started out). Obviously, more gifted than your average student, but shows that is possible in the liberal arts setting to really excel in disparate endeavors. You might enjoy his podcast / YouTube videos:</p>
<p>[Brian</a> Wecht - NECSS](<a href=“http://necss.org/speakers/brian-wecht/]Brian”>http://necss.org/speakers/brian-wecht/)</p>