Hi all
My daughter excels at Math and Chem and also loves art. She is thinking about pursuing a double major in Math and art.
Anyone done this? Any college that might be a good place to do this? Are there any career options that might be open to her with combining these two areas?
TIA
She couldn’t quite finish the Art major (would’ve made her a triple major), so she finished with a minor and extra Art classes. Majors in Math and Comp Sci. So yes, it can be done. Where? Anyplace that has both majors.
I will say might be a little easier to double in Math/Art than Chem/Art just because the studio classes are long and chem labs can be long. Might have a trickier time scheduling those two.
Good to know about the studio/chem lab potential conflict, ordinarylives. Thank you.
In order to major in these two fields it might be required to take about 20 courses among them of the about 32 courses typically required for graduation. Your daughter, then, could pursue her dual interests while still experiencing space to explore in other academic areas.
With respect to colleges to consider, Hamilton appears in a Princeton Review sampling “Great Schools for Mathematics Majors,” offers beautiful studio arts facilities and provides a notably flexible curriculum conducive to study in multiple fields. Smith, Amherst, Brown, URochester and Grinnell offer similarly flexible curricula, and would be worth researching as well for this and other reasons.
Overall, however, your daughter’s goals could be reached at a range of colleges.
Thank you so much for this very helpful comment. I will check out those colleges. Thanks again!
At some schools it may be possible. As one example, my D went to Lafayette college and had a friend who double majored in engineering and art. Some things to consider would be:
–The core curriculum/distribution requirements of the school. A double major would be easier to accomplish at a school with few or flexible distribution requirements than a school with a large and structured core curriculum.
–Will your D go into college with APs that can help to satisfy some general ed requirements.
–Number of courses needed for each major.
As another option your D could minor in art or just take art classes of interest.
For each college, you can count courses or credits needed to fulfill the subject requirements of both majors and any non-overlapping general education requirements, to see if the double major is doable within the usual number of courses or credits.
For example, if a college has students take typical 32 courses over 8 semesters, and 12 courses per major, that means that 24 courses would be used for the majors, assuming no courses double count. That means that 8 course slots are available for general education requirements that do not overlap with the majors. Obviously, this means that colleges with light general education requirements or more open curricula are easier to double major in than those with heavy general education requirements or core curricula. Also, if she bring in AP credit that is allowed to be applied to some subject requirements, that can make it easier to fit the schedule together and get more in-major and out-of-major electives.
Be careful when the departments are very small, so that required-for-major courses are offered only once every two years. If such a requirement for math and such a requirement for art are both offered in the same semester at the same time, that can make it difficult to complete both majors.
All of the above need to be checked at each college, rather than making assumptions.
happy1 and ucbalumnus – That is all so helpful. Yes, she will have a number of AP courses and I had never thought of their usefulness in this way. That is is excellent to know (and will make her very happy to think there is a bigger point to the AP slog than a grade bump!) Thanks again.
Regarding career directions, math graduates often go into finance, actuarial, operations research, or computing, though elective choices can be significant in preparation for any of these directions. Art (visual or performing) careers tend to be elite or bust… many excellent artists do it as an “extracurricular” alongside their day jobs in other areas.
Math and art can be combined:
https://www.ams.org/mathimagery/thumbnails.php?album=48
https://www.sciencealert.com/7-times-mathematics-became-art-and-blew-our-minds
http://virtualmathmuseum.org/
http://www.ams.org/publicoutreach/feature-column/fcarc-art1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_and_art
Thanks, ucbalumnus! Yes if it wasn’t for the “elite or bust” nature of art, she probably wouldn’t double up with math. But double major seems a safer bet. thanks for those links, which I have forwarded to my daughter.
might be too late, but I plan on double majoring in mathematics and photography, and plan on doing so at the university of Richmond or uva! all depends on the financial aid at this point, though.