Is this usually something that’s doable? And say a student does a liberal studies BA where they have 3 minor concentrations. Is it realistic they could into a grad program in one,of these areas? My Master’s is in library science, so major matter.
It can be workable. Call the college to talk through the details.
I know a lot of people with MLS degrees (I used to work in a library)… not one had an undergrad degree in library science or anything related.
It certainly doesn’t matter for the MLS. In fact, I couldn’t tell yo where one could get a bachelor’s in library science. I can tell you it wouldn’t get you a professional library job. My question is for my son. Let’s say he minors in film studies, and has 21 hours in that discipline. Would he be able to get into a Master’s program if he decided after graduation that was where his interestswere?
I think it depends on what you want your degree in and each school’s requirements. Look up the prerequisites for the program you want in each school you are considering.
Oh, ok I misunderstood.
I don’t know of any graduate programs that require a specific major or minor for admission. The pre-reqs, if there are any, are course based (ie a certain level of math, science, etc) depending on the program. There is no one universal answer.
It does depend somewhat on the graduate major. In some cases, the expectation of undergraduate course work is that which approximates an undergraduate major in that subject. In other cases, the expectation may not be as much as an undergraduate major in the subject (note that minors are somewhat less standardized across schools than majors, so a given expectation may be more than a minor at one school, but less than a minor at another). Sometimes, the undergraduate expectation may be less than an undergraduate major, but with additional course work expectations outside that major (an example is economics PhD study, where the undergraduate preparation that is expected is somewhat less than an economics major in terms of economics courses, but with additional advanced math and statistics courses added).
I imagine so. Not every grad program has a corresponding undergraduate major at every university and college. Check with programs for prerequisite courses.
Had an undergraduate major in Political Science (no minor) and have a PhD in History.
Undergrad degree in a liberal art. MS in Ag Science. I didn’t even have a science minor as an undergrad, just a couple of classes. I went back to college for a year to pick up the classes that I needed before applying to grad school.
My son is in grad school (AFI) for film. His classmates come from many different backgrounds, majors, and countries. A good friend of his from undergrad just finished his masters at USC in film. His undergrad was xxx with a minor in film. At the time that friend started undergrad, Lafayette did not have a film major, only a minor. Friend did work for a year in LA in film industry before he was accepted into USC’s grad program.
Thanks, everyone. At this point our S, a rising senior, is considering a several possibilities. They are all combinations of math and film studies (he’d love to review films for a living, but is realistic enough to know that’s a long shot). He’s mentioned math major/film minor, switching those two around, double majoring, or a liberal studies BA with two of the concentrations being math and cinema studies. I was pretty sure this could open up several possibilities, but wanted some input from others. It is my thinking that if he wants to pursue graduate study in math he should have it as a major, but if he figures that out by early junior year he should be able to get enough credits to make it happen.
https://math.berkeley.edu/programs/graduate/phd-program describes the expected preparation for PhD study in math.
The course work described approximates the course work that one would take as an undergraduate math major.
If he were to double major, he would have to plan his schedule very carefully, so that every course covers some requirement for one of his majors, or general education requirements not covered by the majors. Doing such a double major may be more difficult if the school has voluminous general education requirements not covered by the majors, or the majors have a higher volume of requirements (e.g. some schools’ math majors require additional course work like physics or CS).
I think for him to do that kind of double major he’d need for his AP classes to get him out of some general Ed requirements. He met with someone from the math department during our last college visit and was told he’d have a jump on most of the other students due to the math courses he will have had already (II know very little about math, but I thought I heard “Calculus 3”). I have a feeling this will all work itself out.
AP calculus AB typically counts for first semester single variable calculus (calculus 1), while AP calculus BC typically counts for first and second semester single variable calculus (calculus 1 and 2).
It would be a good idea for a student with AP calculus credit to try the college’s old final exams for calculus 1 and 2 to check his/her knowledge in order to choose the correct placement in math courses (or review any minor gaps in knowledge). A student with AP calculus BC credit can often start in calculus 3 if s/he knows the calculus 1 and 2 material well.