Double majoring and double minoring - am I doing it for the right reasons?

College Majors Science Majors
1

<p>Hi All,</p>

<p>I'm double majoring in Biology and English/Creative Writing with minors in Mathematics and Psychology. I'm also on the pre-med track. I'm a sophomore in college right now and I have no trouble at all with the course load and balancing a social life - lots of late/sleepless nights and way too much coffee but I'm surviving. I'll be graduating in 4 years. I'm blessed enough to have a full ride so money isn't an issue.</p>

<p>My question is this: is what I'm doing (double majoring and double minoring) pointless? Going into college, I already planned to major in Bio (for pre med purposes) and English (I love creative writing and hope I might go somewhere with it). But I added on Math and Psychology just because I like math and I thought the psych classes were interesting. </p>

<p>Considering my ultimate goal is to, by God's grace, attend med school, I feel like pursuing the two minors (especially psychology) is relatively useless. What am I going to do with them anyway? Yeah, I find them interesting and I do love the classes, but am I just wasting time? Is "I find them interesting" a good enough reason? A part of me keeps thinking, "hey, it's all free so I might as well put as much as I can on my plate" but I also think this is a weak and, to be honest, a pretentious excuse as well. </p>

<p>Is it? Is there even a good reason to be doing what I'm doing anyway? Or am I just getting, for lack of a better word, greedy? I know people who are doing crazy things like triple-majoring in Physics, Engineering and Math but at least all of those majors GO together. Mine aren't nearly as cohesive - more like a random conglomeration.</p>

<p>Thanks. I'd love to hear your thoughts.</p>

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<p>Majoring in biology is not required for pre-med; for pre-med, you do need to take the pre-med courses, which are a smaller number of courses than a biology major.</p>

<p>Indeed, if you really like math, you may want to major in that, since it gives you better backup job and career prospects (finance and the like) than biology does if you do not get into medical school (math courses also do not have time consuming labs like biology courses do). Consider including some statistics courses, since they will be useful in general, in many math major jobs, and in medicine if you get into medical school.</p>

<p>Simply because you think courses in a subject are interesting does not necessarily mean that you have to do a minor in it. You can just take the interesting courses in that subject in your breadth or free electives and not worry about jumping though all of the hoops to get a minor.</p>