Hello!
I was just wondering how many college majors/minors one could pursue in four years. In my case, I can use my AP and IB credits to complete the general education requirements, so I am able to begin classes for my major starting freshman year. However, I’m not 100% sure what I want to do, and taking a class in every single discipline to find out, and then not earn some sort of degree in it, seems a like a waste of time, so how many majors or minors can I pursue? I believe I have a general idea, but I want to have as many job opportunities as I can when I graduate.
Thank you!
This depends entirely on the university and how related/overlapping your major(s) and minor(s) are. In addition, certain majors that have many requirements, such as engineering majors, may further restrict your ability to double major or add a minor.
Personally, I’m able to double major (math and CS) and double minor (music and dance) and still graduate in four years because of overlapping requirements and AP credits, but this is unusual. I’m lucky that my university encourages double majors and has enough flexibility in requirements to make it feasible.
Personally, I’m double majoring in computer science and linguistics and am graduating in four years (in about a week, actually!). There was only one course overlapping between those, but each major counted for very different general education areas and I used that to my advantage to knock out my GEs while completing major requirements. I had room to fit a minor in if I wanted to, but opted for flexibility and taking lighter loads my last couple quarters to relax a bit.
In general, most people I know do one major and one minor. The occasional person will have two minors. Two majors is fairly rare. In my four years here I’ve heard of one triple major through the grapevine, but I never personally met them. I’ve never heard of more than three majors, and I don’t think I’ve heard of any triple minors now that I think about it, though it’s theoretically possible. My school doesn’t actively encourage or discourage multiple majors, but a lot of people just don’t feel inclined to do it.
Have you double checked that your AP and IB classes can actually be used towards GEs? I know at my school they can’t, but it really depends. If you haven’t, do double check that.
Probably quite a few (at my school, I can easily imagine a humanities major with like four minors in other humanities or social science fields—they don’t have a lot of requirements, so there’s a lot of room for electives), but it would be better to choose one or two fields and take advanced classes in them. Taking a few classes in a field will not give you the same job opportunities as someone who specialized.
Generally speaking, at most schools you can select two majors at most, maybe with one minor. There are a few schools that make triple majoring possible if you have taken enough AP/IB courses.
But really, it’s pointless. I am not sure why taking classes in disciplines you won’t major in seems like a “waste of time” or why you think having multiple majors is a better idea than that - that’s basically the point of going to college. It’s not a vocational school where you just study the one thing intensely; you’re supposed to get a well-rounded education where you learn about a lot of different things. Taking some classes to figure out what you like is completely normal, and may impart some useful skills to you that you use down the line.
Also, loading up on majors doesn’t necessarily give you more job opportunities. Many jobs don’t require any one specific major anyway, and your post-college opportunities are more dependent on what you do in college than what you major in. If you are spending all your time trying to take classes to complete three majors, that’s valuable time diverted away from interning, part-time jobs, and leadership activities that will attract employers. Besides, quality of opportunity is more important than quantity. It makes no sense to have thousands of jobs open to you if you dislike most of them; it makes more sense to have hundreds of potential jobs, most of which sound appealing.