My daughter is thinking about Newhouse at Syracuse as she is a creative writer but also extremely artistic. But she really likes GW and we are trying to decide how she can do both there, ie Corcoran and either English or Creative Writing as dual majors. Is this possible, recommended, etc?
I know nothing about Syracuse… but GWU tries to be as flexible as possible for their students, so double majors exist in abundance in certain areas. But restrictions do exist for a variety of reasons. The biggest reason why a student won’t be able to double major is due to the inability to complete the two majors in a timely manor because of it being too hard, them changing their course of study, and/or the majors being too intensive or diametrically opposite. But the other reason is because of rules put in place by the GWU admin. For example, I, as an International Affairs major, am not allowed to double major in Business. Most of these hard restrictions exist between separate GW colleges (i.e. the business school and journalism school, etc). I’m not sure whether or not a restriction exists between your daughter’s desired programs, but it’s something that you should look into.
What I do know however is that if your daughter is interested in creative writing and the Corcoran programs… you’ve hit an unfortunate daily double with this one. Both of these programs have specific application processes in order to declare the major (submission of a portfolio, passing prerequisites, etc), and the curriculums are very specific. This will make double majoring in them very hard, if not impossible. Note that english is not a major with a specific application process, but creative writing and all Corcoran programs are. There are very few majors like this, but your daughter happens to be interested in two of them.
Another option for you daughter could be creating your own “Special Interdisciplinary Major”. This allows students to create their own major if they can create a curriculum and prove it to be a good course of study that accelerates them toward a specific goal. You have to build your own curriculum alongside an advisor and submit it for approval, but it can be done if your daughter has a good idea.
I’ve gathered these two links for you to further your research.
Major requirements, double majoring, and majors with specific applications: https://advising.columbian.gwu.edu/major-requirements
PDF on custom interdisciplinary majors: https://advising.columbian.gwu.edu/sites/advising.columbian.gwu.edu/files/SIM%20Guidelines.pdf
Good luck to you and your daughter throughout this process!
EDIT: forgot to mention, the amount of AP/other college credit your daughter comes in with may play a role in weather or not you can pull off a double major. AP credit at GW doesn’t count merely for the number of credit hours, but also can count as a course equivalent. If for example, your daughter got a 4 or 5 on the AP BC Calculus exam, her math requirements would be satisfied, which would free up more time.
Thanks once again gdubya. She will be submitting the art portfolio for sure.