<p>Hi, I'm an incoming freshman for Fall'13 and was wondering if it's possible to do a double major at UIUC. My current major is CEE and I'm interested in doing a second major at LAS (Japanese under EALC). I'm confident to get placed into at least level 300 courses due to my current Japanese proficiency (JLPT Level 2). With that, is it possbile to actually double major as an engineering major?</p>
<p>If you are in engineering and you want to obtain a second major in LAS, you have to request admission to the LAS program which you cannot do yet and usually do for beginning of junior year, and during freshman and sophomore year you need to complete any course requirements that would be needed by usual students in that LAS program, and in your case you could possibly take level 300 language courses. Permission to enter the program is not guaranteed but will usually be allowed by LAS as long as course requirements are met, your grades are decent, and it appears you can actually complete both programs within 5 and possibly 6 total college years. To complete the second major you must meet all of LAS’s requirements for graduation including its general education requirements, which are more than those for engineering, and completion of all required hours for the major.</p>
<p>In other words it is possible. Whether it is practicable is a different issue. ECE has an enormous number of required courses and out of class studying time is very high, and trying to do both programs at the same time, particularly when they are unrelated majors, can be a difficult task both in number of course hours you would need to take per semester and being able to have a schedule that allows you to do it, e.g., you can sometimes run into issues where a required course you need to take in any given semester for one major is available only at the same time of day as a required course you need to take in the other major. Whether you can personally accomplish that is an individual issue but be aware that ECE usually has a significant number of freshman who enter with the plan to double major and the usual result is that most come to their senses within a year and abandon the effort to the point that when ECE provides its number of juniors who are actually double majors the number provided is annually very small, sometimes only one, and that is usually someone in a related second major, such as math.</p>
<p>So it’s whether or not I can cope with the course requirements of the 2 majors?</p>
<p>Just wondering but does it mean that I have to take like 200+ hours in 4 years or are there a significant number of overlapping mods that LAS has with the college of engineering which would bring the hours down to a manageable level?</p>
<p>If all else fails a minor is always a safe backup</p>
<p>It is not quite that bad. Note that UIUC does not actually have a Japanese major. The major is called East Asian languages and culture and requires a number of Asian history and cultural courses other than just the language. The general education course requirements for the two colleges will overlap except that LAS just requires a few more which can likely be met just by the courses in the East Asian major. Thus, the total additonal hours you are looking at adding is probably only about 40 to the 128 needed for ECE. Many who major in ECE do not finish in four years just because of its daunting course requirements for the engineering degree and adding a second major in LAS could easily add a year or even more.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot drusba! It’s really informative!</p>
<p>By the way, I’m majoring in CEE (Civ & Env Engg) and not ECE. Would it be any easier than ECE?</p>