As much as I would love to do a triple major - its not feasible at all. So that’s where I am hoping the forum comes in handy. Alrighty so for some background - I want to major in a language (haven’t decided which one yet) and another subject (well paying lmao). So I do good in pretty much everything - Bio, Physics, English, History, Writing, Econ, Applied Mathematics, etc. . . That’s why I cant decide what I want to do. Some of the majors I have looked at are Biophysics, International Relations, Pre-Med, Poly Sci, and Marketing. I have no clue what I want to do, and my parents want me to establish a general idea of what I want to do before we spend money flying around the country for college tours. I want a balance of what pays decently and what isn’t too horrendous to do for the next 40 years. Also, as far as my language - I am looking at Spanish, Mandarin, and Russian (I speak Spanish fluently already). I don’t know which would be most useful. I know, I am a bit of a mess, but thanks in advance for the help.
Do you need to major in Spanish? Or can you use your Spanish skills in International Relations?
or use it to be a bilingual pre-med major?
Or could you major in internatal relations and take additional Russian/Mandarin/Spanish classes as a minor?
Think about what type of job do you want to do…then perhaps add the language to that. A bilingual doctor would be useful in cities.
Marketing (or anything in business) and a language can be very useful. Spanish is good as Latin America is up and coming.
International relations/political science combined with a language is a fairly common combination. But you can combine a language with almost anything; I know people who were pre-med or psychology majors or theater majors who combined it with a language. So choose a few things you think you might want to major in and keep those in mind as you tour colleges. You know you want a strong language department, so that could help you narrow it down. I understand your parents wanting you to have some sense of what you want to do before looking at schools, but I don’t think you need a concrete idea — college is all about exploring yourself and what you like. Have some general ideas of what you want in a college (strong language department, big vs. small school, urban vs. rural, possibly strong in one or more of the other majors you mentioned).
If you end up going in a bio/medicine route, having language skills can be really helpful if you want to work in a region where a significant proportion of the population speaks less English; you could even go the philanthropic route with this sort of combination.
I agree with the above posters that a combined international relations/language degree could be really useful. You might even want to look at overseas programs for this sort of thing. I had a friend in high school (also great at every subject) that ended up double majoring in Asian Studies and Mandarin at the University of Shanghai.