<p>I think I have explained my quandry before, but here goes again:</p>
<p>I'm interested in possibly going to medical school, but I don't know how concrete that is. As such, I don't want to put all of my eggs in the medical-school basket (to be so trite as to use an egg metaphor on easter). The problem I see with CIT is possible engineering grade deflation, and therefore a crap chance at med school. On the other hand, CIT is ranked higher and would probably give me better job opportunities out of college if I decided not to go to med school after all. MCS on the other hand is a little less prestigious and probably easier to get higher grades in, but doesn't offer the same security a CIT degree would...at least from my dettached perspective.</p>
<p>Can anybody give me some advice?
BTW, I was thinking Biomed/ECE in CIT or a Comp Bio/CS double major in MCS.</p>
<p>It all depends on the individual. Have you checked out the different courses and subjects you have to take?</p>
<p>There are easier classes for engineering such as physics for engineering students (which is easier) than stuff MCS people take like Physics I and Physics II. </p>
<p>However it depends on YOUR skills and mindset. Some people ace engineering classes and struggle with the sciences while others are entirely the opposite. Plus, Biomed vs Biology do have similarities and course overlaps.</p>
<p>I would probably pick CIT in your case because you can always transfer to MCS if you do not like your current school.</p>
<p>Is it harder to tranfer from MCS to CIT than from CIT to MCS?</p>
<p>Also, would double majoring in BME/ECE or BME/ME completely kill the GPA for med school?</p>
<p>Once again I do not know your mindset/academic skills. I am doing a double in CS/Business and I have a 3.8 with a lot of free time. Of course, there are some people just struggling in just single majoring Business to keep up a 3.0 so it definitely depends on the individual.</p>
<p>Take some courses (dabble a bit) and see what you like. It is definitely 1000x more useful to take a few courses than for me or any other student/advisor to tell you how "hard" anything is.</p>
<p>I don't want to add a new thread, but I had a question:</p>
<p>What is the max. number of credits/courses that students are allowed to take in a given semester?
Thanks</p>
<p>The max is 50 units. Of course if you have above a 3.0 or are very persuasive you can ask your counselor to raise it and "overload". To my knowledge, there is no limit on how many units you can overload on as people have gotten away with masters degrees and triple majors all in 4 years. As long as you can handle it, you can take 5 classes or 10 classes.</p>
<p>Of course, Spring Semester Freshmen are not encouraged to overload since the university has no standards yet and has not tested your abilities via CMU coursework. I think you can overload SLIGHTLY spring semester to take 6 classes or add in another minicourse (CSW is required) but they probably won't let you do something crazy like take 7 classes without a CMU gpa yet.</p>
<p>Then isn't getting a dual-degree really difficult to accomplish in 4 years? 50 units/semester isn't going to cut it at all.
And in your case, AA, double majoring in Business and CS:
1) Will you be able to finish both without taking more than 50 units/semester?
2) Is there ANY advantage, post-graduation (going to grad school, searching for jobs, etc...) in having a CS degree as a primary major or having CS as double major? </p>
<p>Thanks a lot</p>
<ol>
<li>Uh no. From what I understand, only a few classes are required (look at the business cores). The rest have to usually be made up with electives so you can graduate with 360 units or whatever it is. Therefore, these units can be made up with a second major or even a third!!!!</li>
</ol>
<p>I will DEFINITELY finish in 4 years and I have taken quite a few electives. </p>
<ol>
<li>You cannot "focus" in a track like primary CS majors do but there is no real advantage of having a primary CS as opposed to a secondary one. In-school there are advantages like having priority for upper level CS courses but after-grad it depends mostly on your resume and GPA. If you show you can ace your CS courses you may even take that 80+k job over a primary CS major who didn't do so well in his CS courses. Also, a double major is a great way of showing how you can integrate both majors (such as business and CS) into your work skills and how much you've learned from both majors. </li>
</ol>
<p>I definitely think a double major is a great resume booster (as long as the two majors make sense for the job you are applying for) and people almost always finish in four years. </p>
<p>From my personal experience, it is 20 times more important to get that higher GPA than to worry about what major you are. This is true at other top schools too where 4.0 anthro majors can be offered better jobs than 3.0+ Econ majors.</p>
<p>This may be a stupid question, but I can't see a definitive answer on the site: is computational finance strictly offered as a master's degree?</p>
<p>No. It is an ugrad degree you can apply for by taking the necessary classes/courses.</p>
<p>Wow, awesome. I didn't apply to Tepper, and obviously didn't enroll there. Hopefully I can double major in comp finance and comp bio (I just sent my enrollment in with MCS decided on for comp bio).</p>
<p>AA, I checked out the Business course schedule, and was pretty shocked to see that you guys get tons of elective courses (over 20 I think) over the 4 years. Yet for Mech. Eng, we only get 5 free electives. Other engineering and CS also get between 6 and 9.
Knowing that, doesn't it become almost impossible to double major if you're a CIT student?</p>
<p>Are you sure you guys only get 5 electives? </p>
<p>You should ask the engineering head/advisor about that but the business core is 8 classes for a DOUBLE major +econ/communications. The other stuff like IntroProgramming and the math courses doublecount and are required for Engineering student as well. </p>
<p>If you look at <a href="http://www.cit.cmu.edu/default.aspx?id=365%5B/url%5D">http://www.cit.cmu.edu/default.aspx?id=365</a> you see your general requirements overlap with some business requirements like Principles of Econ. </p>
<p>You can't declare a double until junior year so I would first email the engineering advisors to ask them about elective courses (in other words you have a lot of time to figure things out). Obviously I am not a CIT student so I can't help you much there.</p>
<p>Ok, I guess there's still a lot of time to figure things out and think things through.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot for your help, AA, it's really appreciated</p>