Are double majors discouraged at A&M? My son wants to do a double major but we don’t think the college is very encouraging about this. Does anyone have any experience with this? How did you convince them? How easy or hard was it? My son will be a freshman this fall and is considering a biochem and math double major. Anyone with any suggestions please…
My daughter is a double major student. However she is a sophmore and just got accepted into the program. She had to apply. She is a psychology major and a kineselogy major thru the Liberal Arts college. I really suggest he get some of his required core credits started and wait until his sophmore year to apply, so that he can show he can handle his classes. My daughter took 17 hours this semester and had a 2.7 GPA. She also has never taken under 15 hours a semester. Plus she had AP credits coming into A&M, she did not have any dual credits. When she enrolled at A&M she took classes gearing towards both her majors not really knowing if she was gonna try a double major. She applied sometime in February and was accepted right after spring break. He needs to keep in close contact with his advisors, as the more you do the more they can help you. My daughter’s advisors were very encouraging. But all in all I believe it was a very easy process for her. However she was in her Sophmore year, not Freshman when she applied. So she had almost 35 credit hours, not including the current hours she is taking which is another 17. That could have made a difference.
Thankyou Cmsparent. also does double major cost more i mean after all you are getting double credits at the end of 4 years.
To my knowledge no. At least she hasn’t said anything to us about it costing more.
First off, you don’t earn double credits for a double major. The core classes count for both, and depending on the majors some other courses may double count. So you are just doing the major specific courses for the second major (pre-req & UD). I’d start looking at the course requirements for each major, see how many credits your student would need to take to complete both. You need to figure out if it is even possible in a four year plan or a 5 year plan. They don’t encourage ‘professional students’, so I think that is the new push - they want you in and out. Taking more than 18 units is tough - you can’t schedule your classes to easily de-conflict. Most students take 12-16, then get involved in other things that round out your college experience (classes alone no longer seem to be what employers are looking for). A common option is declaring a minor vs. a major, fewer units are required. You pay the same amount for any course load over 12 units, so it doesn’t cost ‘more’ tuition-wise if you can complete the program in the same time frame - if not, yes it will cost you more,plus you do buy books for each course and it seems upper level books do cost more (IMO). Some departments do not approve double majors, just minors or by exception only- you can ask each department &/or check online to see if there is a published program for double majors/minors (just search on howdy). There are lots of opportunities to get involved in organizations, clubs, competitions, research, special programs/certificates, etc. so sometimes a double major is not necessarily the most attractive path.
@windoo1 - The other thing that will determine whether a double major is possible is how many AP/IB/transfer credits your son brings in. My son is just finishing his freshman year in Aerospace Engineering. With his AP credits, he is a junior in class standing already and will have two minors, Chinese and History. Even with all his credits, he still could not work out a double major and graduate on time because the junior and senior year AE classes are so proscribed - there is very little room for anything else, particularly if he wants to get the dual BS/MS engineering degree in five years. Also, as AGmomx2 discussed, there is a cap on undergraduate credits allowed, so my son could not take all his AP credits.
Now, for two sciences with some overlap, it could work out. I agree that you don’t have to decide now.
Just read on another site, that you must declare your majors/minors before the last semester when you are eligible to graduate with a major, irregardless of your ‘intentions’ to get another degree (major or minor). Apparently you cannot just ‘choose’ to continue and do a second degree of either sort if it is not already declared at that point, a request for a minor was denied for that reason. So do declare at least a year before you are about to complete your original major.
thank you very much Beaudreau, AGmomx2, and Cmsparent