When I get to college I plan on double majoring and having one minor.
-I know double majoring can be a tough workload depending on the majors, but is throwing a minor in on top of this pushing it?
-I want to major in English. I’m not sure if I want my second major to be Political Science or Psych. But whichever I don’t major in I wanted to have as a minor. Advice?
-I’m not familiar with how college classes exactly work. Is there a way for me to take a couple classes in both PoliSci and Psych before deciding which to declare as a second major and which to pursue as a minor? Because that would help with my decision.
-Any other advice anybody can offer about this?
This depends on the university. Some universities make it hard to add majors, some don’t care. At my university, you don’t declare your major until sophomore year and switching after that is a matter of just filling out a form (only exceptions are business and leadership, since those schools have competitive admission).
I’m a double major (math and CS), double minor (music and dance), just finishing my junior year. Again, this differs from university to university, but where I am, this is really doable and not actually more work necessarily than a single major. You’d have to talk to an advisor where you attend to find out how it would work, if at all. Average course load at my college is 4-5 classes, and I take 5 classes every semester (with music ensembles and lessons on top- I don’t consider them part of my academics, rather extracurricular). Someone with one major might take a gen ed, a class for their major, and a few electives every semester, while I take generally one class for each major, one for each minor, and one gen ed/double up on something. So same number of classes, just distributed differently, and no electives (because my minors take the place of electives).
None of those majors is likely to have very many overlapping classes. Most colleges require around 120 credits to graduate, with about 30-40 of those being general education requirements… Most majors require about 40 credits, with most minors requiring 20 credits. So English plus one other major = 80 credits; plus one minor = 100 credits. That only leaves you 20 credits left - probably not enough for all of the general eds, much less any other electives you might want to explore. Of course, this varies from college to college; some places may have less stringent major requirements to allow for double majoring more easily. My undergrad college made it very difficult to double major so few people did it.
You don’t have to formally declare a major or minor to explore an area, even in some depth. It is very possible (and advisable) for you take a couple classes in political science and psychology before deciding which you want to declare as a second major. It’s also possible for you to have one major and one minor, and take supplemental classes in either or both; or to just have one major with a lot of coursework in those areas.