Is doing a dual degree crazy?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Washington University in St. Louis
1

<p>I got into the art school at Wash U early decision (!!!!) and my plan is to get a BFA in either painting or communication design, and then pursue a second degree in Art and Sciences (probably psychology or psychology-neuroscience-philosophy or something). And when I say second degree, I mean as opposed to a double major (graduating with a BFA and a BA).</p>

<p>So my question to you is not whether I should do it, because I'm like 99% sure I will (the fact that it's offered was a contributing factor to choosing the school in the first place), but rather, what should I expect? Do people who do this have friends? Is it possible to finish in 4 years? Will I have time to do anything besides school and eating?</p>

<p>Any thoughts are appreciated...also if anyone knows anything about what it's like to go to the college of art in general, that would be stupendous as well. :-) Thanks!</p>

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<p>How many AP credits are you likely to go in with? This is extremely important if you want to stay on a 4 year time-line.</p>

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<p>yes, but are you willing to eat less pizza ;+) Doubling will come at a cost, not the least of which will be the headaches of wending your way thru the maze of incorrect and incomplete information that you will receive along the way. You will need to find an advisor who you think knows what s/he’s talking about and then not listen to anyone else. You should also have a very close relationship with this person such that you can ask their help as you negotiate your way through the maze of people who tell you you cannot do this or that. You can question what s/he tells you, but trust this person to the exclusion of your roommate, classmate, your major advisors, etc. Good luck finding that person. I would start with trying to get close to an associate or assistant dean in one of the colleges with which you’re concerned. This person not only should know what they’re doing but they can cut thru the muddle and be held responsible if things go off course. If a dean advises you incorrectly then you can probably count on that dean to have the authority to get you back on course. An old head might be better than a new dean. You just cannot tell til you “interview” a couple of these people. Good luck.</p>

4

<p>Wow this was really helpful, thank you so much for taking the time to reply! I really don’t know how the whole advising system works, are you assigned an advisor upon your arrival or based on your school or something? Or do you eventually pick your own through the kind of process you described</p>

5

<p>I’ve gotten 5s on Human Geo, English Lang, Calc BC and US History, and I’m taking AP Stat, Studio Art, English Lit, and Psych this year so I hope I can gather a few 5s from those as well, but we’ll see. The problem I’ve seen (on the website, etc.) though is that it seems very few AP classes actually transfer credits, that they serve more of a placement purpose than anything else. Is this true?</p>

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<p>Usually 5s will transfer and provide some credit. Most schools will also accept 4s in some subjects. These are very helpful credits to have. Each university, and sometimes each college within a university, has its own policy regarding what they will accept. You’ll have to go thru each uni individually, but count on most of them accepting 5s.</p>

<p>Advising at WashU SHOULD be very good. Advising tends to be better in wealthier schools. I’ve heard nothing but good things about Washu advising. Generally, schools assign each student an advisor, usually out of some central advising office located within a college like A&S. Quite often, you will meet with this advisor when you register for classes either before classes begin during pre-Fall orientation or at Admitted Students Day. Then you won’t see them again until Spring pre-registration around Halloween or later. However, there’s no need for you to wait til then to see the advisor again. There will probably be some days when s/he is unavailable, but make an appointment when you can go in and explain in further detail your plans to get dual degrees. See at that time whether your assigned advisor responds warmly and knowledgeably to that plan. If s/he doesn’t, make an appointment to see an assistant dean to talk about it. DON’T mention the advisor by name; the dean can find out if s/he wants to. Again, interview the dean for his or her knowledge of the subject. If s/he doesn’t work out, try an assistant or associate dean in the other college from which you want a degree. The reason for all this is that most of the time an advisor knows his or her college very well but not all advisors know another college well. An advisor who is not overburdened with work, however, should be able to find out how you can graduate with two degrees. I’ll bet that’s just what you’ll find at Washu, but I wanted you to know there’s a backup plan and that you don’t have to be afraid to speak to administrators (i.e., deans).</p>

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<p>It appears that WUSTL limits a student to a maximum of 15 credit hours from any source before entering as a freshman. It also appears that which credits they will give you depends on which school you enter. So until this is all settled for you and you talk to an advisor, it is hard to say if you will get all 15. I think you most likely will. That certainly helps towards getting two degrees, but to do it in 4 years will still be a lot of work. Probably some summer courses, which with prior approval can usually be earned at a hometown university, will be needed.</p>

<p>WUSTL’s website is extremely unhelpful on this topic, which makes me suspect it is pretty rare to do this. Other schools I have looked into require 150 hours for two degrees, rather than the normal 120. If this is spelled out on WUSTL’s site anywhere, I cannot find it. I suspect it is because it depends so heavily on which combination you are considering, which makes jkeil’s advice of finding someone knowledgeable and helpful as a guide through all this even more important.</p>

<p>I also strongly recommend that you start talking to WUSTL about these credits immediately after you get your AP scores from this year. Then they will have all relevant information and should be able to tell you exactly what is what. Make sure you keep all correspondence on this topic until you graduate from WUSTL. University’s are famous for screwing this kind of thing up at the last minute and coming to you and saying “You don’t have the credits you need for two degrees. Who told you that?”. You want to have proof of everything you are told along the way. Keep a file and guard it with your life.</p>

8

<p>good advice. One of the techniques professionals use to establish clarity is that after a meeting they will issue an informal “memorandum of understanding” to the person with whom they’ve just had a conversation or meeting. You write it asap after the meeting and you include every important point that you discussed and the agreements at which you arrived. Then you send it to the party with whom you had the meeting. The expectation is that if there’s something in the memo with which the other party doesn’t agree they will respond and clarify in a timely manner. Otherwise, they have implicitly agreed with everything that has been said in the memo. Now there’s a written record of an oral discussion and communication has been improved dramatically. If the person with whom you’ve had the conversation leaves her position or the university, the successor and the university are bound by the agreement. More or less. ;+)</p>

<p>Final piece of advice: have a folder in dropbox into which you insert all memos and copies of all emails so that no matter what happens to your computer you will have a backup.</p>

<p>When you’re trying to do something as crazy as you’re trying, you have to cross your t’s and dot your i’s or you will spend an extra semester or two at the school.</p>

<p>I think your combination of art and neuroscience in particular could be very cool. If you’d like to chat some about that I’d like to hear your thoughts via pm.</p>

9

<p>

I believe you’re right on the 150. Last time I looked, it was listed in one of the bulletins, which you can find via webstac.</p>

<p>OP, I am not aware of anyone who actually completed the inter-school dual degree program in less than 4 years. 150 credits in 8 semesters (even with 15 AP credits) is very difficult.</p>

<p>Furthermore, your issue may not be credits, but the fact that art + double major (not dual degree) is tough enough as it is. The sophomore/junior + senior capstone (or however they’ve reworked studios) is unbelievably time consuming. The senior one, at least, has you in the studio from 8:30-4pm MWF. And all that time only equates to 10 credits. Imagine having to cram other necessary art-degree classes in on Tu/Th PLUS the additional classes for your second degree.</p>

<p>There’s a reason why art/architecture students complain about their schedules as much as they do.</p>

<p>For reference- I was an engineering student. I seriously considered getting a second major in art (photography) but the studio component made it impossible to consider seriously.</p>

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<p>Excellent insight from the voice of experience. Thanks Johnson181. I think you are correct that the way WUSTL is structured, with individual schools having so much control over degree requirements, this becomes exceeding difficult in 4 years in general and perhaps impossible in practice for the two degrees the OP is contemplating.</p>

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<p>This should answer your questions. Found this on WUSTL’s website.
<a href=“http://wustl.edu/community/faculty-staff/assets/AdvisingHandbook2013.pdf[/url]”>http://wustl.edu/community/faculty-staff/assets/AdvisingHandbook2013.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Nice find, princetonmum. Page 17 confirms the 150 hours. It does indeed appear to be exceedingly difficult to do 150 hours (or 135 if you get the maximum 15 AP credits, confirmed on page 3) in 4 years, but it isn’t impossible.</p>

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<p>I’m a freshman at WashU, and I was in the Art School last semester, and was planning to do either a dual degree or double major as well. (I’ll be switching to Arts and Sciences next semester, just because I’m changing my mind about what I’m most interested in. Still minoring in art!)</p>

<p>A lot of people at WashU do double majors or majors with multiple minors. It’s very, very common. A few people also do dual degrees. I believe that we were told that people sometimes try to do them in four years, but the university doesn’t encourage it at all, and you shouldn’t expect to be able to do it in four years. If you plan to do it in ten semesters, and have some AP credit coming in, you should be able to do it without being extremely overworked and stressed. It will probably be limiting in terms of the classes you can take outside of your majors, but it shouldn’t be absurdly hard. </p>

<p>As someone who was previously considering getting a dual degree, I would encourage you to think about why you want one specifically. The only reason that you would NEED a dual degree is for a very specific career path that requires very specific credentials. In my understanding this almost always applies to specific STEM fields, not art/social science/humanities fields, so this probably isn’t the case with you.<br>
The idea of having two bachelors degrees is SUPER COOL, and I know at times I saw it as a way of being able to more fully explore what I wanted to study, but the truth is that the only thing you tack on when you get a second degree (as opposed to a second major) is a second set of gen ed requirements. You take the same number of major courses. </p>

<p>Since you’re going to be in the Art school, you’ll be assigned a four year art advisor, and a freshman year art school advisor. And if you declare a second major in artSci, you’ll then be assigned a major advisor for artsci. I don’t have any other college experience to compare it to, but from what I understand WashU has a fantastic advising program. I haven’t sought much help from my advisors, but when I decided to switch schools they did make the process very smooth and easy, so so far I have nothing but good things to say about the advisors. </p>

<p>Georgia Binnington will probably be one of your advisors, so you may want to get in contact with her if you have any questions. She’ll probably have a very good idea about what is or isn’t doable, and exactly what the time commitment and workload for a dual degree looks like, because she’s helped other students in your situation. Her email should be on the samfox website somewhere. </p>

<p>In terms of what the art school is like (and washU in general)? It’s really fantastic! They have a foundation year program, so your first year won’t give you very much choice in terms of the classes you’ll be able to take, but the classes are a lot of fun, and they’re not very big, so unlike a lot of your artsci friends (who will be in a lot of huge lecture courses), you’ll have classes where you know all the other students and will interact a lot more with your professors. I’m not sure what specifically to tell you, but here are some tips:</p>

<ol>
<li>When you get the chance to register for classes, do the registration worksheet yourself rather than just telling them what classes you want and letting them work out a schedule. It’s less likely to get screwed up that way.</li>
<li>when you do the above, sign up for Mary Borgman’s drawing I class. She’s the best professor, but she’s very hard to get for drawing II because by second semester everyone knows that already.<br></li>
<li>You’ll probably want to take intro psych considering you’re planning on majoring. It is a very, very difficult class, but it doesn’t seem like it initially, because the professor, carpenter, is pretty cool and a very fun lecturer. The exams are killer, but if you know that going in, and prepare for it, it should be okay.</li>
<li>Picking a dorm style: Traditional v. modern hasn’t got much to do with dorm format. There are traditionals that are suite style (and not so great floor communities), and a lot of the modern “suites” also sort of open onto a long hallway and have really fantastic floor communities. Traditionals are just older than moderns. That’s pretty much it.<br></li>
<li> Expect to change your mind about things. You will. I have. It’s kind of what college is about. It’s what makes it super fun and exciting!</li>
</ol>

<p>So… I can’t think of any more tips or info, but feel free to send me a private message if you have any specific questions!</p>

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<p>Can somebody tell me about WashU’s dual degree program</p>

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<p>That is far too general a question, plus there really isn’t any such thing as a “dual degree program” , at least as being discussed here. To get two separate degrees, like a BA in one subject and a BS in another, you have to complete 150 hours (120 is normal for one degree so you are talking about what would normally be another year’s worth of credit hours), fulfill all the requirements for both majors and fulfill all the requirements for each school within the university.</p>

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<p>Sorry I haven’t checked this in awhile, thank you all so much for your thought-out responses. All of these are good things to think about; I will definitely look into the WUSTL website more for info, and figure out the whole advising thing when the time comes as well. Thanks again!</p>