If I got accepted, how hard would it be to switch from engineering to CS? Thank you!
With exception to BME, it is very easy to change majors, so switching from engineering to CS will not be difficult as an incoming freshman. If I remember correctly, I believe you are able to switch majors from the one your stated on your application (again, with execption to BME) before you even start classes in the fall.
I second what jp1721 said. My daughter is a sophomore and her roommate was accepted as Chemical Engineering and switched to Chemistry before school started. Several of her other friends made the same switch.
With the exception of BME, changing majors is as easy as filling out a form - especially for freshmen.
Also FYI CS is in the school of engineering at Hopkins.
Excluding BME, I actually thought I heard that they don’t ask you to declare until soph year (maybe even after soph year) but I could be mistaken. Seems they are encouraging of kids coming up with their own areas and combinations of study and are less strict about having a specific number of certain classes (like LAC) so that you are free to learn about what you want to learn about. Of course you will need the requisites in your major but all of this is to say that a school like that would seemingly afford more room for changing majors by nature of more open space in one’s class options - not as many “wasted” classes.
(current student)
In the Kreiger School all students enter “pre-major” (undeclared) and declare a major somewhere between second semester freshman year and second semester sophomore year. Engineering students come in with a predeclared major, but switching is very easy (and very common) - the exception of course is BME which is easy to switch out of, but almost impossible to switch into.
Hopkins’ general ed system is based on “distribution requirements” as opposed to hard course requirements. What that means is that instead of being forced to take English 1A, 1B, History 101, etc to satisfy your humanities requirement, you just have to take a specific number of courses with the humanities or social sciences designation. That gives you a lot more flexibility to explore topics outside of your major course of study. However, you will generally have hard course requirements for your major. For example, all CS majors need to take Intro Programming, Data Structures, Algorithms, etc, but to satisfy their humanities requirement they just need to take 18 credits of humanities or social sciences courses.
Is it hard to transfer from Krieger to a Whiting major? Is Whiting selective in majors besides BME as well?
Nope, I know a writing seminar kid who became a MechE