<p>I recently got accepted to Williams College ED, and I was wondering if it's practically/theoretically possible for an undergraduate student to major in 4 subjects (in my case philosophy, political science, economics and mathematics).</p>
<p>I can get credit for my AP/IB scores for...AP Calc BC, IB History HL+AP US History+AP European History, AP Economics (micro/macro).</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>So, you want to quadruple major. I suppose you could try it. But, I think that you will just burn yourself out by the end of freshman year. Contact Williams to see if it is possible.</p>
<p>No it is not possible. Also, Williams does not grant credit for AP scores, just placement in some areas.</p>
<p>Given the relatively modest distribution requirements, it would be possible to at least take several courses in each of the areas that you have listed.</p>
<p>It might be technically possible, but it would be a terrible idea. Four years at Williams gives you 32 classes to work with, assuming a normal courseload. Each major requires at least eight classes (some require nine or ten). Classes can’t be double-counted towards multiple majors, and Williams doesn’t accept AP test for credit, just for placement (AP scores place you out of low-level classes, but you still need to take at least eight courses in each major field), so that means you’d need a minimum of 32 classes, and probably more like 35 or 36, to fulfill four different majors. Add on distribution requirements and you’re approaching at least 40 classes, meaning that you’d need to overload yourself every single semester to make it work. It would not be fun.</p>
<p>And that’s only if you want to do the bare minimum in each of those majors. If you want to be a <em>good</em> mathematician, you’ll need to take a whole lot more than eight math courses at Williams (in fact, you probably shouldn’t attempt any other major, and just focus on math - it’s a deep enough subject that even geniuses spend their entire lives trying to understand small corners of it). Same goes if you want to be a <em>good</em> philosopher, economist, etc. And I imagine that if you’re ambitious enough to want to quadruple major, then (whether you realize it yet or not) you’re probably ambitious enough that you’ll want to be good at something. So you can and should take the intro classes in each of these subjects, and a few of the upper-level courses that interest you, but you’ll still need to specialize eventually, because you’ll find that that it’s not particularly satisfying to spend four years working yourself to death only to graduate without having gained any deep knowledge of anything.</p>
<p>Not possible and agreed, terrible idea.</p>
<p>Why not just major in Political Economy, which basically combines Poly Sci, Econ, and Philosophy, and take a bunch of math classes and/or high level economic theory classes (which are math intensive) as part of the Poly Ec major. Or if you REALLY want to push yourself, you can double in Poly Ec and Math, but that would be a very challenging double major. The whole point of a liberal arts college is to acquire a broad education across a variety of disciplines. Double majoring makes that difficult, but not impossible. Anything more (even if permitted) would make it impossible.</p>
<p>hi l’optimisme, I am a Williams ED acceptee as well, and and interested in nearly the same fields as you! Like Jeke and Ephman said, it probably would not be a good idea to try and quadruple major. However, Williams has some very interesting interdisciplinary (I don’t know if this is the perfectly accurate term, but in the general idea) majors that cover several - if not all - of the disciplines you are interested in.
Political Economy, International Studies with a concentration in …, double majors, Leadership studies, etc
I would recommend reading through the course catalog <a href=“Williams College”>Williams College;
to see just what classes each major requires, you may be surprised to see the wide variety of classes that may be in one major. Keeping with the liberal arts spirit there can be even more crossover of departments in one of the specialized/interdisciplinary/other majors. After factoring in exploring other types of classes whether through distribution requirements or just for sheer curiosity you could have quite the philosophy/polisci/econ/math mix, even if you major in just one or two of those fields.
Political Economy: econ and poli sci courses, plus some interesting and more specialized courses that from their description seem to have a large component that is in the same vein as a philosophy course. Also, many of the upper level econ classes do require a large amount of advanced math
International Studies: “Students will be expected to take courses in at least two departments to fulfill the requirements of a track.”
But on math…reading through the math classes offered, some of those do look too tempting - and dare I say fun! - to pass up :)</p>
<p>I would go for a combination of political science and economics and take political economy; I checked the whole course catalog and many courses overlap.</p>
<p>They wait until a while to have you declare your majors so you can check with them and try out the courses and see how they are (As well as whether or not you can have all the credits to major in all four)</p>
<p>is it even possible to major in three fields?
and yes, a quadruple major would be ridiculous for someone who actually wants to learn a subject. Try minoring. :)</p>
<p>If you tripled in a each of a humanity, social science, and hard science subject, or took more than four classes a semester, then it’s probably possible. There aren’t minors at Williams, only majors and concentrations (which are specific subjects like neuro or leadership studies).</p>
<p>you will probably realize that you dont like 2 - 3 (or maybe even all 4) of the subjects you listed once you study them in a serious fashion.</p>