Changing Majors and Schools

<p>I'm an incoming freshman, and I have some questions about changing my major. I originally was said I wanted to do a microbiology and immunology major in the College of Arts in Sciences (much to my mother's approval) and I am also in the Prism Program. But I would much rather be in the School of Business Administration to major in International Finance and Marketing. Is it still possible to switch majors and schools? Also are you allowed to double major between schools, so I could do a double major in English? (if not then it's not that big of a deal.) Also I want to switch from the Pre-medicine track to the Pre-Law track. Overall, I'm a really confused incoming freshman who could use some advice/explaining about this. I am going to email UMiami after I talk to my mother about the situation, but before that if anyone knows anything, could you please help me?</p>

<p>It’s all super easy.</p>

<p>I dunno if you can do this before you get to campus, but literally all you have to do is walk into the A&S office and sign a form. Then it will go to a few other people to sign, then get passed on to even more people, then before you know it you’re in the B-school. Here’s some more info: [Change</a> of School/College or Major | Enrollment Management | University of Miami](<a href=“http://www.miami.edu/index.php/registrar/academic_records/change_of_schoolcollege_or_major/]Change”>http://www.miami.edu/index.php/registrar/academic_records/change_of_schoolcollege_or_major/)</p>

<p>Before the business school approves it you might need to meet with one of their advisors, I’m not sure. But it shouldn’t be hard at all.</p>

<p>You can double major across schools. People in the B school do other random majors all the time. And pre-law and pre-med aren’t majors, so there’s not too much you need to do about that. When you get on campus you can go into the freshman advising office and sign a form and then you’ll start getting access to all of these emails that they send out to pre-law students. As a side note, I’d recommend a second major in philosophy instead of english if you’re interested in law school - though both will prepare you well for the LSAT (though I think philosophy will prepare you better). Another pre-law thing to keep in mind: why are you interested in business? General law school admissions wisdom is that the only thing that matters is your GPA and LSAT score. If you want to go to law school, a 3.9 GPA in an English major is better than a 3.89 GPA from a triple major in engineering, english, and business. English is nice because it gives you somewhat of a backup plan if law doesn’t work out (that is, teaching or writing for a newspaper or something). But unless you have a good reason for getting a major in the B-school, it’s pretty pointless and it likely to hurt you in law school admissions.</p>

<p>the only thing you need to do is to talk to your advisor. I have a lot of friends having switched major / schools within two first years. In UM, it’s easy to do that.
About double major problem, it’s very popular among UM students. I myself double major in Finance (in the Business school) and Math (in the College of Arts and Sciences). I’m not in any pre-professional track, but I do know the Business School offers a lot of support for Pre- law track (LSAT free tutor session, for example). The best thing you should do is to talk to your advisor about your interest and your plan, she will give you best advice.</p>

<p>Thank you so much for the information :)</p>

<p>Well I want to go into international corporate law, so I figured a major in business would be the most appropriate thing. Also I really enjoy English and writing, so I wanted to do an English major for that and the advanced English courses. </p>

<p>Also, I heard somewhere that it takes five years to do a major across schools. Though, I’m not sure how accurate that is. </p>

<p>How long does it normally take to change schools/major?</p>

<p>I mean, whatever you’d like to do. I think the best way to go about doing that might be to get an MBA while getting your JD at your school of choice (instead of getting a business degree before your JD program), but it would be a good idea for you to get into contact with someone in your field.</p>

<p>Law isn’t like undergrad. The prestige of your school is vitally important when getting hired, so you want to do the best you can to go to a great school. That means high LSAT and high GPA.</p>

<p>But I don’t know the intricacies of it, and least of all business law, so I’d really recommend talking to someone in the field before you decide on a course of action.</p>

<p>It need not take you five years to major across schools. The reason that might happen is that you may need to need to fulfill the general education requirements of both schools, but those would overlap. I don’t think that will be the case, though - when I was considering double majoring in meteorology, they told me I’d only have to complete the general education requirements for arts and sciences even though meteorology is at RSMAS.</p>

<p>Another reason might be that business has a lot of requirements, to my knowledge. While most majors only require 30 credits of coursework, I think the B school requires 60 credits of coursework - another reason to avoid a major in the business school if you’re pre-law.</p>

<p>If you plan out your time here well, you should be able to graduate in four years.</p>

<p>I never heard of anybody who cannot graduate within four years due to general education requirements. No matter you have only one or 2 or 3 majors, you will have to fulfill the general education requirement of only one school, it’s the school of your first major (also of your advisor)
For example, my first major is Finance, so I only need to fulfill the requirement of the Business School. For my second major (Math), I just pick up the Math- major courses without fulfilling any general requirement of Arts and Science.</p>