I love international relations. I love learning about foreign cultures, policies regarding international issues, and diplomatic procedures. However, I know International Relations, while one of the stronger humanities degrees, isn’t the most lucrative field, so I was thinking about supplementing my IR major with a environmental, civil, or mechanical engineering degree. My thought is that would enable me to work in International development and environmental protection. What do you think? Could I do both without losing my mind, and would my majors lead to the desired careers?
Why not go into Environment Science to supplement your interests instead? I don’t agree with double majoring in engineering just for a more lucrative job– engineering is quite hard by itself, and if it’s not something you’re absolutely passionate about, you can quickly fall behind. I know a lot of IR majors who take Environmental Science to integrate humanities with STEM.
Also, I’m not a huge fan of this new concern over choosing a major based on its financial outcome. From my experience, you will get the job you work for. Not every engineering major is happy with the way their life turned out. Not every humanities major is being crushed under loads of student debt and unemployment. I think it all depends on how you apply yourself. If you put in the necessary work experience (internships, studying abroad, good grades, etc.) you can be very successful with an IR major alone. I’m personally double majoring in English and IR and while many people would see this as a road to failure, I’ve actually landed quite a lot of jobs just through expressing my marketability. It’s all about advocating for yourself, and if you’re as interested in IR as you say you are, you should be able to prove your attractiveness within your desired workplace.
Quick question: Are you also looking into grad school? Would you be interested in law school or maybe business?
My ultimate goal is to be an FSO, so I’m certainly interested in graduate school. Law school is a possibility, but probably not business.
I’d definitely try International Relations and possibly double in Environmental Science. When considering grad school, you also have to think about which courses can get you the farthest in class rankings– AKA which majors you can study that are easiest for you. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t challenge yourself, but you should also think about raising your GPA as high as possible (3.75+ would be ideal if you want to try for top-tier grad schools). Engineering schedules are typically packed so that it’s fairly difficult to double major with it. Unless you’re absolutely dead set on doubling in Engineering and IR, I wouldn’t recommend pursuing both degrees. You’ll probably have to petition for a dual degree anyway (meaning you’d be taking classes for two separate divisions within your uni), which is another story in and of itself.
Tufts has great programs in both, so I’d recommend that you look at the requirements for both. What I’m going to guess you’ll see is that dual degrees would require 5 years as both majors are very heavy on requirements and few courses will satisfy both at once. What you may be able to figure out is if you truly want degrees in both or if you could satisfy your interests with a major in one and coursework in the other. I totally agree with @InamoratiAnon that you shouldn’t do a degree in order to work in a field you don’t even really like. You’re too young to be setting off on that track. I DO think that if you choose something you like, you make a point of developing skills so that you can work in that field. Good “skills” for someone who likes IR include fluency in a foreign language, perhaps finance (if you think you’d like to use it in a business environment), environmental science (since you like that), etc…
I’m fluent in English, Spanish, and proficient in Swahili.
As a practical matter, to do engineering, you would have to major in engineering and take the international relations courses within your humanities and social studies breadth requirement allocation. To actually get both majors would likely require more than 8 semesters of normal course loads.
If you want to be a foreign service officer and/or work specifically in IR I’d be baffled by the desire to go into an engineering major. Majors - and the careers that they open up - are not just about quantity; they’re about quality. You don’t want to be an engineer…so why major in engineering? If you really do want to do environmental protection, I agree that a major in environmental science (or even a natural or physical science more directly related to that, like atmospheric science, earth science, geology, etc.) would be better and more flexible for your interests.
The FSO role has specific career tracks (https://careers.state.gov/work/foreign-service/officer/career-tracks) so you may want to take a look at those.