<p>Hello everyone,
I just started looking into double majoring in ASL and Spanish at Valdosta State University. It should be around 200 credit hours (after factoring out the overlapping hours), but I'm not exactly sure. I should also have 20+ hours from AP tests if I pass all of them, so it may be less than 200 hours. Could this be attainable in five years? Would this be difficult in general? Any advice?
I'm a linguistics junkie... Learning languages is so interesting to me!!! I wish I knew every single language.
Thanks for the feedback in advance!</p>
<p>From my quick research, it looks like your school is on semesters? If that’s the case, 200 hours is insane. You generally need 120 hours to graduate from a semester school, and take around 30 units each year; going by that, you’d take up to 7 years to graduate. Also keep in mind that AP credits don’t always help you much as far as class requirements, and when they do they only get you out of intro classes. For instance, I came in with 24 units of AP credits, but only 8 of those units could actually be used for anything other than helping me get a better registration time sooner.</p>
<p>Ask yourself this: Why exactly do you want to double major? How would it benefit you versus pursuing other options, such as: Majoring in one and minoring in the other; majoring in one and taking classes in the other as electives; majoring in one and studying the other in your free time… you get the idea. You don’t need to major in everything that interests you.</p>
<p>As far as double majoring in and of itself, I’m a double major in computer science and linguistics. With that combo, the class load each quarter isn’t too bad because they balance each other out. But, scheduling classes is a pain in the you-know-where sometimes because the departments don’t coordinate with each other and end up with conflicting times for required classes. I’ve been able to work around it thus far thankfully, but I also know of former double majors that had to drop one because time conflicts prevented them from getting certain classes. You also need to make sure to keep in close contact with your advisers, and to carefully plan classes out beforehand to make sure you meet all requirements. If all of that sounds like too much of a hassle, then I would strongly recommend against double majoring.</p>
1 Like
<p>@PhantomVirgo‌ Here are links to the Programs of Study for both ASL/English Interpreting and Spanish majors at VSU:
ASL: <a href=“http://www.valdosta.edu/colleges/education/middle-secondary-reading-and-deaf-education/documents/asl-program-of-study.pdf”>http://www.valdosta.edu/colleges/education/middle-secondary-reading-and-deaf-education/documents/asl-program-of-study.pdf</a>
Spanish: <a href=“http://www.valdosta.edu/colleges/arts-sciences/modern-classical-languages/documents/advising/checklist-spanish-lct.pdf”>http://www.valdosta.edu/colleges/arts-sciences/modern-classical-languages/documents/advising/checklist-spanish-lct.pdf</a></p>
<p>Maybe you could check over my math. All of the core classes are the same for these majors at VSU, and I can get out of about half of them with AP/dual enrollment classes (assuming I pass the exams/classes). It seems like I don’t need anything besides introductory classes for my core classes according to the programs of study. The classes that don’t overlap are the ones that are required for my major, aka the last two-and-a-half years of each major. So let’s say I get out of 25-30 hours worth of classes, and they’re all core, overlapping classes. 120 hours for Spanish + 126 hours for ASL - the ~48 overlapping hours = 198 hours. Now, if I get 30 hours, worth of classes knocked out due to AP/dual enrollment credit. 198 hours - 30 hours = 168 hours. If I’m trying to complete that in 10 semesters, 168/10 = 16.8 hours, round up to 17 hours per semester, which will not be too awful. Is this doable? Am I doing my math right and reading the programs of study correctly?</p>
<p>I want to double major so I will be fluent in each language and able to help others in interpreting situations to the best of my ability. If I minored in Spanish, I would not be as able to translate as if I majored in it. This would simply just be more helpful. Languages and math are like the only two things that interest me, so I want to make the most of them. Also, there will be more (advanced) job opportunities if I majored in both languages.</p>
<p>I will do anything to make double majoring work, so thank you for that bit of advice. If it doesn’t work out, that will be very disappointing, but I could deal with minoring in Spanish. That’s my back-up plan.</p>
<p>Thank you for the advice!</p>