“would a liberal arts college allow me to take more classes in the differeent areas rather than choosing a couple?” (#18)
This relates to the structure of the curriculum more so than to the classification of the school. Smith, Grinnell, Amherst, Hamilton and Brown are examples of colleges with flexible curricula and at which you would be able to choose most of your classes without restrictions. The University of Rochester is fairly open as well.
The fact is that one cannot register for many classes outside of his major / minor. That was the main reason why my D. had 2 minors. As I mention, you can have several in combo of major(s) / minor(s), and then after taking all the classes that you are interested it, just drop them. This is the easiest solution to your dilemma and that has worked perfectly for my D. and others around her.
First of all a ton of colleges have good options in all 4 of the areas you mention. They are pretty much core subjects in liberal arts colleges as well as most small and large universities. (Even technically oriented universities like Caltech and MIT have strong economics.)
When my son was about to set off for college, I asked him what major he might choose. Note, he did not choose the colleges based on expected major, but on overall quality and other factors including intellectual atmosphere and location. Since he had been a debater in high school and also a journalist (editor of school paper), he said he might want to major in political science. “Do you think you might want to do that as a career?” I asked. “Maybe,” was his answer. “Then you should lay a strong foundation in economics, maybe even major in it and take a second major in political science. But you’ll be exposed to many other subjects because of the type of college this is. You don’t have to make up your mind now.”
A good college curriculum will allow you to explore, based on your initial and evolving interests. You may find a subject that you never thought you’d be interested in before. In social sciences I would include geography and psychology as subjects few high school students get more than rudimentary exposure to. So keep an open mind, but also be aware that you have to make some choices fairly early if you want to graduate in 4 years.
As it turned out, my son did major in economics (he had a strong background in math), and all but did a second major in political science. He spent his junior year abroad. But as he approached his senior year, he decided against an academic career and went into the world of business – no MBA, but his econ and math skills were very apt. After 3-4 years, however, he bailed into other pursuits that allowed him to follow and develop his interests in applied statistics. He ended up making his career in journalism. He uses everything, all the skills he learned in college. But also some, writing and statistics, that he developed on his own since early childhood. Yet he could easily have gone on for a law degree or a doctorate in political science or economics.
None of this was determined by his college choice. Rather, having chosen an excellent college permitted him to develop a variety of skills and competencies in areas that interested him (and some that did not), and left him with many options for a career.
Many liberal arts colleges and liberal arts schools within larger universities have distribution requirements. That essentially means that all students must take a few classes in many types of subjects; students usually do this early on, and it helps them figure out what they want to dive deeper into.
Distribution requirements are just one example of how colleges can structure their curriculums to ensure that students can get exposed to different fields. Other curriculum structures are definitely worth looking into.
You may find that you do not actually want to go further with some of those subjects after taking a college course or two in them (as I did with Economics). If you do, however, find that you want to study all of them, you could double major, or do a major and double minor, or simply take a series of courses in a few of the fields. Also, as previous posters have said, interdisciplinary programs are another solid option you could consider, though you may need to look into those before you apply to the colleges.
“The fact is that one cannot register for many classes outside of his major/minor.” (#21)
Some colleges allow registration for all courses to all students on a roughly equal basis. From what I understand of the schools mentioned in #20, for instance, during four years a student would be able to take about twenty courses outside of his major without any significant restrictions. Adding another major or a minor would change the balance somewhat, but the principle would remain the same.
A social science major typically consumes about 35-45% of one’s bachelor’s degree course work. That means that the student still has considerable schedule space outside of his/her major. Of course, some of that schedule space may be restricted due to general education requirements, rather than being free electives (although if the general education requirements can be fulfilled by courses that the student wants to take anyway, that is not much of a restriction). The amount of general education requirements varies from school to school.
There are ways to take classes without being in the major, ways to bypass prerequisites but that is not practical for most students. What is in course catalogs et al can be ignored- humans, not computers rule. Of course, it would be foolish to attempt a class for which you have too little background knowledge or skills to succeed. Do you want a bachelor’s degree? Or- do you want to dabble in taking college courses? Technically you could major in everything but that would take many years longer. There simply are not enough hours in a day, days in a week… to do everything we want to.
Okay- so you concoct a major. But- will you study any subject in depth? Or will you merely skim the surface of several interesting topics? Schools award degrees for having met the requirements of an indepth study of a subject, the major. Finding the time to take enough advanced courses in more than two subjects would be very difficult- you also need to meet breadth requirements.
I suspect that two or three years from now, once you have college experience, you will understand more. You will indulge in several courses for the fun of it and choose the most interesting or logistically practical subject for your primary focus/major. btw- there are always courses within any major you will not like but need to take.
Do not discount large universities. These institutions often have many more courses in more diverse fields than many smaller LACs. Look at the courses offered in any proposed majors. You can’t take every course offered due to time constraints but you will not be limited to the standard courses. It can be fun to study something obscure. An example- why be limited to standard languages when you can take one of several Indian languages or literature in translation from other than French/Spanish/German? Or major in Linguistics? You haven’t yet discovered so many areas that you may like.
“large universities . . . often have many more courses in many more fields than many smaller LACs” (#26)
Though this isn’t untrue as a general comparative statement, a well-resourced LAC will offer 700+ courses, and will make most of them available to all students, an aspect that may be less common at large universities with internal divisions.
An intrinsic part of the structure of what we call a “liberal arts education” is that students must pick an area – a “major” – in which to concentrate their studies, and in which they are expected to acquire some depth as well as breadth of knowledge. That’s true even at colleges like Brown and Amherst with an “open curriculum.” That means that they don’t have general education requirements everyone has to meet. It does not mean that students aren’t required to pick a major (or sometimes two) and to concentrate their studies that way.
However, as several people have pointed out, the liberal arts model allows students a fair amount of leeway – and indeed strongly encourages them – to take courses outside their majors.
Penn, by the way, also has a popular undergraduate PPE major.
In many colleges an International Relations major would allow courses in all those subjects except possibly philosophy.
Apply to any liberal arts college, or to a university with a strong humanities program. Most don’t require you to declare a major until December of your sophomore year. Take the classes you like for the first year, then narrow it down the first semester of your sophomore year. Even if you pick just one or two, say philosophy and poli sci, to major in, you can still take classes in the other subjects.
Many years ago when I was in college, I was interested in a wide variety of humanities fields. I spent my first two years taking courses in English, Theater Arts, History, Art History, and Philosophy, trying to get a broad humanities background before deciding on a major. While I did eventually decide to major in one of those fields, those two years of taking broad introductory courses, as well as some more tightly-focused advanced courses, in all of them was one of the greatest pleasures of my college career. It helped that the liberal arts college I attended had a very flexible set of general education requirements that offered lots of choice. I think it is great to have broad interests, and you certainly want to attend a college that will allow you enough flexibility to take many courses outside your eventual major. And if you want to do an interdisciplinary major that combines a few of them, that’s great too.
Universities have liberal arts. Students are not confined to their major or even school/college within the U. btw- OP you have an advantage in that your interests do not require the sequences needed for most STEM majors. Wherever you attend school keep in mind that rules on the website can often be ignored, such as course level and prerequisites if the professor allows it. Do not limit yourself to freshmen level courses as well when you start as some may have higher numbers but are appropriate.
This is just wrong. I graduated with 2 degrees in 4 years (a BA and a BS) and was still able to take plenty of courses outside of my 2 majors and 1-2 minors (huh… I can’t remember now lol).
Remember, your D’s experience was NOT the experience of every student ever.
@MiamiDAP I agree with @romanigypsyeyes This may have been the strictures in place in your D’s experience but many schools exist that have little to no barriers in registering in a wide variety of classes.
To the OP: this shouldn’t worry you excessively at this point. When researching schools, simply ask how easy it is to take a good no. of courses outside your stated major. Some will heartily say YES. Some others won’t. There you go…
To the OP. Another point. A few colleges have intensive required core humanities courses that will give you exposure to, among other things, the classics in philosophy, literature, and history. Some of these are foundational even today for social science disciplines – Aristotle, Plato, Freud, Max Weber, and others. I was fortunate to have been required by the curriculum at Reed to take 2 years of a humanities sequence that amounted to the equivalent of 1.5 courses (“units” in Reed’s nomenclature) per semester. Other colleges have a more flexible core, with more electives. Reed’s was very demanding and wonderful. It has been made a bit more flexible in recent decades, including broadening beyond the strictly “western” humanities canon.
This didn’t take away from my ability to take intro and advanced courses in a number of disciplines (including language study). But the hum requirement had what I consider perhaps its most important effect of giving all students a common language of discourse.
My point here is to say that you should regard general humanities requirements as providing an entry to many disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. IMO opinion exposure to such foundational literatures made me a much better social scientist than I would have been had I begun my college studies with a series of intro courses to separate disciplines. To be sure, I did begin some such intro courses at the same time I was taking the humanities sequence, but the latter was still foundational.