I’m Starting my first year of college (with some college credit) in the fall. I intend to double major in “Linguistics” (with a concentration in International Relations) and " Information and Computer Science.". And minor in Japanese. However, I would also like to do study abroad for at least two semesters within my undergraduate years. I Intend to CLEP (test out of for college credit) most of my core freshmen classes that I didn’t take as AP this summer. Despite this, I’m Still not sure I’ll be able to do study abroad and still graduate within 4 years. Any tips? Is it too much? I’d rather not have to take summer classes, but Ill do some online summer courses if I need to.
It depends on your college and what their requirements are. You should really talk to an advisor. For example with CLEP, my college accepts CLEP but you have to have taken the exam before starting college. You can’t as a current student test out with CLEP. I had 23 credits coming in to my university. Also studying abroad also made me exempt from a world society GenEd. And still, I studied abroad for a year. And I had to make a decision between double major or study abroad. I couldn’t have done both. As for the minor, you could in theory if you study abroad in Japan and if your school accepts the credits, complete all or almost all of the requirements for a Japanese minor.
This does really depend on your college and the study abroad program. Finding study abroad programs where you can satisfy major requirements in international relations or Japanese is pretty easy; it’s less easy in linguistics, and can be rather difficult in computer and information sciences.
Why would you want to CLEP out of most of your freshman requirements? CLEP actually tests college-level knowledge in things; if you haven’t already taken classes or somehow garnered experiences that provide that knowledge, how likely is it that you’ll pass the CLEP exam and become exempt? Freshman requirements often help broaden your viewpoint and contribute to your understanding of the world and your major.
You don’t have to double major. You can choose one major and then just take classes in the other areas. Like, if you want to learn Japanese, you can just take the language classes; the Japanese minor will also make you take literature and culture classes (which is fine if you want to take those! They’re super helpful for understanding the context in which the language develop(s). Just saying that if your focus is fluency in the language, you won’t need the minor).