<p>My D was accepted to Harvey Mudd for the fall. Her main interest is math but during this school year she became more interested in economics and would like to eventually do some sort of combination of math/economics/computers. Do you think the Mudd curriculum could accomodate her interest in economics? </p>
<p>She is planning to attend the accepted student days in a few weeks but it would be nice to do some planning on this in advance. Thanks for your help.</p>
<p>dsultemeier, this link may interest you.
[List</a> of Approved Concentrations](<a href=“http://www.hmc.edu/academicsclinicresearch/academicdepartments/humanitiesandsocialsciences1/concentrations.html]List”>http://www.hmc.edu/academicsclinicresearch/academicdepartments/humanitiesandsocialsciences1/concentrations.html)</p>
<p>Also bear in mind that she could cross-enroll for classes at other Claremont colleges including CMC, which is well-known in Economics. :)</p>
<p>We only have a couple econ classes here, but CMC has many. She would have several options:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>A lot of students pick econ as their humanities concentration. This typically involves an introductory course at HMC followed by several courses off campus.</p></li>
<li><p>If she decides that she’d like focus more heavily on econ, she can do an econ major at CMC and minor in math (or something else) at HMC.</p></li>
<li><p>If she’s passing out of some core classes and/or wouldn’t mind taking some extra classes beyond the typical load, doing a double major could be feasible. Some combinations are rather impractical (like engineering + neuroscience) but a math/econ double wouldn’t be unreasonable.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>There are several math majors who double major in Econ. Mudd’s Econ program is the biggest strength of the humanities department and there are actually a decent amount of courses. The main Econ prof at Mudd is brilliant too, which helps. Also, as Daniel12 said, CMC offers many great Econ courses.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for the helpful replies. That makes it sound very doable and also an excellent program. Do you know what types of jobs the math/econ majors get? (always a worry to a parent spending lots of money on tuition) I’ll pass the information along to my D.</p>
<p>On a somewhat related note do you know of a place on the website where there is a diagram or chart of the typical courseload. I tried reading the narratives about numbers of semesters and credits and courses required but found it rather confusing. How many classes do students take each semester? To me it sounds difficult to get the 128 units required in four years. </p>
<p>I also saw that three semesters of P.E. are required. Can you take classes with a specific sport (say karate or dance) or is it like the all-purpose middle school gym class? </p>
<p>Thanks for all the help.</p>
<p>There’s a nice broad selection of PE classes, also thanks to the 5C network. Here’s a list copied from the course schedule (for Fall 2009):</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Thanks for the information. My D thinks fencing would be fun to try. </p>
<p>Everthing we have heard about Harvey Mudd sounds good. Now we are just waiting to visit on the 19th and 20th so my D can see if she will fit in with the students there.</p>
<p>FWIW. My son has done some fencing (loved it, but had a schedule conflict) and discovered a strong interest in economics this year. He felt very much at home among Mudders when we visited last year. The Mudders he met were not stereotypical “nerds,” but warm, friendly, multidimensional people who got his jokes, explained their research with patience and clarity, and could carry on a great free-wheeling conversation. If the majority are like that, he’s going to be in heaven for the next four years.</p>
<p>Good luck to your daughter in her decision process… we’ll see you on the 19th. :)</p>
<p>Math and economics majors could do a lot of things. Go into the financial world, become actuaries, become professors of economics or mathematics (though this involves tons of further study in graduate school), teach math elsewhere, work in the computer science field, etc.</p>
<p>Basically, a lot of math majors get hired to do things other than explicit pure math, because they are viewed as “smart” and can learn new things.</p>
<p>Thanks for the information. Geek_mom your description of the Mudders makes them sound like a great group. </p>
<p>My D is trying to choose between a rather odd set of schools that accepted her - HMC, Duke (Engineering), Carnegie-Mellon (SCS) and Case Western (engineering) She and her dad are visiting Duke this coming weekend and Mudd the next weekend. </p>
<p>D got accepted at the places we didn’t visit last year and rejected at the places we spent the most time. So she hasn’t visited Duke or Mudd. We did visit CMU last year and liked it but D isn’t sure about committing to CS at this point. </p>
<p>We spent the weekend doing spreadsheets comparing the schools but that didn’t help much since they all have so many good aspects. So I guess it will come down to the feel when she visits. I’ll be happy with any of her choices.</p>
<p>Geek_mom: I loved the description in your location regarding recording all the “lasts.” I guess I’m not the only one obsessing about all the lasts this year. 
</p>
<p>dsultemeier: We visited last year and my son fell in love with Mudd (before that I could barefly get him to visit). It quickly went to the top of his list (tied with MIT, which he did not get into, although he was leaning toward Mudd anyway). I really felt this was the right combination for him of top notch academics in a smaller more personal environment (but with the resources of the 5Cs for a wider variety of social and extra curricular activites, as well as other academic areas). Your daughter has some great choices. </p>
<p>We’ll be there for ASP as well so see you there!</p>