Double major and CS/BME

Colleges and Universities A-Z Vanderbilt University
1

Hi all,
Do you know how good is BME and CS at Vandy? Is it easy to find internship and research? reAlso, is double major possible?

2

To check the doability of two majors, you can take a look at the degree requirements and add up the courses or credits needed:

  • all requirements for the first major
  • plus all requirements for the second major
  • plus all general education requirements
  • minus all duplicate courses in the above categories (i.e. you need a course only once if it fulfills a requirement for both majors, or a major and a general education requirement)
  • minus any courses that you are likely to get through AP/IB/college credit from high school

You can then see whether that number of courses or credits would be doable with normal course loads, greater than normal course loads within reason, or unreasonably greater than normal course loads.

3

But sometimes colleges place limits on how many courses can be “double counted” for two majors. So courses that are needed for both but which exceed that limit may have to be augmented with an additional, related course .

4

I’m pretty sure that double major is possible. But the more important question is why that double major. The reason for a double major is usually one of the following:

  1. The two fields intersect or may intersect, and you’re interested in the area of intersection.

  2. The two fields are completely unrelated. You pursue one of them for your career and the other for your own strong interest.

  3. You think a double major gives you the opportunities to work in either field.

The first two are valid reasons for a double major, but I’d advise against the last one. If that were your reason, you’d probably be better off focus more of your energy on one of them and become a stronger candidate in that field.