My son applied into the Pratt School of Engineering. On his application he indicated a primary interest in ECE with a secondary interest in CS.
Kids who just major in CS (without a second major in an engineering field) are in the Trinity College of Arts & Sciences.
One thing we appreciate about Duke is their very clear degree planning. For example, if you Google “Duke ECE/CS” you can find their degree planning checklists readily available. Also, if you Google “Duke Course Catalogue” and select “public view” you can see the course offerings and descriptions for each semester.
Duke makes it very easy to explore and switch majors. With that being said, double majors will always have more rigorous requirements especially when engineering is involved which has specific ABET accredited classes all the students must take. Students don’t officially declare their majors until Sophomore year so there is room to figure things out. But, students do need to apply into Pratt or Trinity on their initial application.
One thing to note is that Pratt is more flexible with accepting AP credits than Trinity. If you look at the Duke website you can see which AP credits are accepted in both schools.
My son has found the double major completely manageable. He is a big engineering “geek” so a lot of the first semester stuff was already familiar to him after his 7 years of FIRST Robotics and lots of tinkering and self-learning at home.
With his AP credits he was able to skip the first CS requirement, the first Calculus requirement, the first physics requirement, and an English class requirement. There may have been one more class he could skip but it’s escaping my mind. The AP classes have made the double major more manageable for sure.
As far as advising, we always joke “how many advisors does one kid need?!?” He has a peer advisor who is an upperclassman majoring in ECE, he has a faculty advisor, and he also has a Dean assigned to him that he can contact if needed. The Duke students also get a 360 advisor to help with transition to college and other things that fall outside the purview of academic planning. So…I’d say that advising is one of Duke’s strengths.
Let me know if I covered everything! Happy to answer anything else you may need answered.