<p>How is life in college when one is double majoring?
If one double major in international studies and economics?
Say one extend their time, double majoring in international studies and economics from fall to summer session 1, would that lift a lot of the course load... enabling the student to have a more average schedule?</p>
<p>As a senior in high school I ask this question because I'm debating if I should have economics as a minor or major. I also wouldn't mind attending college for part of the summer also, which I have in thought of doing reguardless if I double major or just have a minor.</p>
Thats what I was assuming by double majoring, but students who I know double major ( or students who have friends who double major) mention it’s not really that difficult. So far I plan to have a minor, though I guess while attending college ( freshmen year) I can see how I deal with handling the requirements.</p>
<p>It depends on the majors. Some majors require a lot of courses (engineering) and some don’t (political science). If you are majoring in something that doesn’t require a lot of courses, then double majoring isn’t too difficult–it just means that you can’t take blowoff courses as electives.</p>
<p>This isn’t a question that can be answered by someone on here. You need to research the majors’ requirements, the gen. ed requirements, the classes available, and how many credits you need to graduate.</p>
<p>Thanks for the answers, I guess it sorta depends on the university you attend? If not, thats a reason why I stated my plan majors/ minor to be informed on whether they overlap at all. I did do research and notice they seem to overlap some, but I’m not sure by how much. I guess I will look more into their relationship with each other.</p>
I at least plan to have economics as a minor, but to be even more well rounded I was thinking about a major if it wouldn’t be very difficult, and I could enjoy college life just as much. I know having it as a minor still keeps options open for many graduate programs and jobs, but I just thought the major would increase options much more…</p>
<p>“It depends on the majors. Some majors require a lot of courses (engineering) and some don’t (political science). If you are majoring in something that doesn’t require a lot of courses, then double majoring isn’t too difficult–it just means that you can’t take blowoff courses as electives.”</p>
<p>Not true. They have the same number of required classes, engineering kids just have to take specific classes where as liberal arts kids have more freedom in choosing. For example, if you need 24 credits of upper level courses to graduate from the college, engineering is usually a continuation of a previous course or the upper level courses require calculus/physics/whatever before you can take it where in government you can take politics of japan or sociology of politics or government in comics with less stringent prereqs. It is not so structured but the number of classes you must take is the same. </p>
<p>International studies and Economics would be an example of something easier to double major in. However, if your school is like mine and international relations (if we had a major for that) would be in the business school and economics is in the liberal arts school, you will run into some problems because the business kids have different business core requirements than the liberal arts kids, at my school at least. However if both majors are in the same school then it should be fairly easy to finish in four years with a minimal amount of summer school, depending on how many credits you have to transfer in, if you have any.</p>
<p>Oh and you must make sure that your school even allows double majors. UT Austin’s business school does not allow business majors to double major in two business subjects.</p>
<p>Also, the only place they will really ‘overlap’ is in core requirements. After that when you get into upper level courses you have to take X number of courses that are classified under international relations and X number of courses that are economics. Like for example, You can’t take a class that’s called IR 123: Economics in International Relations and try to use that towards your economic major because your economic classes would be under ECO 123 or whatever. Unless your school has some special policy form request thing you can fill out to count one class for both or if your school allows this, which I dont think mine does.</p>
<p>This is just my experience with my particular school.</p>
<p>A lot of people double major without adding too much stress , you just need to be careful in course selection and sequencing, and you must realize that instead of having fun electives in all sorts of discipline your courseload will be filled with required courses instead. Taking some classes over the summer might help a bit, but remember that you may be expected to make money in the summer…or to get internships / work experience .It can also be very expensive to attend summer session classes because most 4 year schools do not accept transfer of credits once you have acheived junior status, and also some schools will not accept transferred credits in your major, especially for upper level classes.</p>
<p>Like others said, this can’t be answered on here. Schools vary in many different ways, from how hard it is to feasibly double major, to class rigor, to gen. ed. requirements. If anything, post on the different individual college forums and ask how double majoring is at that school.</p>
<p>This is not true. It isn’t even close. At my school a major in electrical engineering requires 94 credit hours of work, not counting geneds, and a major in political science requires 50 credit hours. This is almost double the amount of required credit hours. This isn’t something unique to my school either. Professional degrees require more work than non-professional degrees.</p>
<p>edit: I just looked that up. I’m really surprised at that disparity–I didn’t think it was that bad. Now knowing this, I’d say that if you are in the liberal arts and want to be a serious student, I’d recommend double majoring or going deep into your major.</p>
<p>edit2: An english major requires only 39 hours of classes! 39 hours! wow!!!</p>
<p>You’re mistaken. Unless you go to some obscure college, the credits required for graduation are typically the same regardless of major. While an engineer might have 94 credits in his major, and a political scientist 50, they both have to get to a higher number (say, 120) to graduate. The poli sci major just has to take more classes outside of his major.</p>