<p>I was accepted for the class of 2018 as a neuroscience concentration. I plan on taking a premed track, however, I’m also very intrigued by economics. I love learning about the world economy and having discussions (debates) about it. I’m seriously considering double concentrating in both neuro (premed) and econ. Does anybody know whether or not this will work out in terms of class scheduling? Also, how stressful will it be to keep up with both? </p>
<p>Neuro appears to be an ScB. It is usually close to impossible to do a double concentration in four years if one of them is an ScB, although it is hard to tell how many courses are required by glancing at the neuro website. </p>
<p>I am not a big fan of double concentrating – I just don’t see what it gets you in the long run. Why must you also do economics? Why not take all the econ classes you want, and then you can just say on your resume or cover letter that you also took x-number of econ classes? You can learn all about the world economy and discuss it to your heart’s content without concentrating in econ. In fact, you can probably do more of that by taking the classes you want to take in econ rather than those required in the major, some of which may not be of interest to you.</p>
<p>ETA: You were not accepted to Brown as a neuroscience concentrator. You were accepted to Brown. You can change your concentration 10 times between now and sophomore year and end up majoring in visual arts if you so desire. Just wanted to make sure you understand how this works.</p>
<p>Sounds like you should start freshman year taking classes in each and go from there. I meet a double major premed student (bio, public policy) who was also on the swim team and went to Olympic trials. Don’t know how he had the time, but he was a sr I think, so it was working.</p>
<p>My son is a sophomore working on a double concentration at Brown – depending on how you look at it, maybe a triple concentration. He recently declared for an ScB in computer science and applied math and is halfway done with the additional requirements for the less-demanding bachelor of arts in physics. It certainly helps that both degrees have some common math prerequisites/mutually required courses.</p>
<p>With two unrelated concentrations, it’s still possible but you’d need to either shoehorn in several optional 5th classes during various semesters, take summer classes, or use the open curriculum to focus exclusively on depth rather than breadth – in other words, nearly every course would be related to one of your concentrations.</p>
<p>The logistics of being able to take the necessary classes in time could pose a problem: many courses are only offered once a year and the schedules for these required courses may overlap between concentrations. To make this work, you’d really need to begin this summer by studying the exact graduation requirements for each, looking to see what prerequisites each required course demands, and see how frequently each course is offered. Then you build your freshman class selection by taking as many “bottleneck” classes as possible – the ones that need to be taken first before you can take the more advanced classes which, in turn, might be prerequisites for even more advanced classes.</p>
<p>If you do this, prioritize your most desired concentration and if the scheduling doesn’t fully work out, don’t worry about it too much. As Fireandrain points out, having a block of classes from a second area of concentration can still be referenced in a resume and cover letter even if you technically fell short of completing all the requirements for a second degree.</p>
<p>I would say it is definitely feasible. Many students who are pre-med concentrate in something unrelated to science. You would basically be doing the same thing (since there’s a big overlap between pre-med requirements and Neuroscience concentration requirements), plus a handful of extra courses to finish out the Neuroscience ScB. Do note that this will leave considerably less room in your schedule for intruiguing or fun or random electives, which some would say are a big part of the Brown experience.</p>