<p>when you major in something, is that the only class that you take? like for example, if you major in chemistry,
do you just take chemistry?
or do you take chemistry plus other science classes with more focus on chemistry?
and if you major in chemistry, do you have to take classes in the humanities, like english, history, etc.? or does it depend on the school?</p>
<p>No, you don’t only take classes in your major. Almost all schools have general education or distribution requirements - you have to take courses in different fields. The exact policy depends on the school. And most majors have other requirements too; a chemistry major would have to take bio, physics, and math as well as chem. However, a major only needs to be about 14/40 classes (on a semester schedule). So many students double major or have one major and one or two minors. That’s how it is in the U.S. I think in the UK almost all of your classes are in your “major” (you have a “course” instead). I don’t know how it is in other countries.</p>
<p>so if i majored in something like chemistry, i’d have to take classes totally irrelevant to chemistry, like history and english? i would love taking bio, phys, and calc because that’s related somewhat. but general education feels like high school all over again.</p>
<p>It depends on the school. Some schools only have 1 class that’s required, some like Chicago have an intense core curriculum, and others like Brown (I believe) have no general education requirements.</p>
<p>^Exactly, zakuropanda. If it’s important that you are totally free to take whatever you want, there are a decent number of colleges with no general education requirements (I can’t find the list now… :/). Brown is one of them. Also, if you take AP classes, you can place out of general ed or distribution reqs at many schools. It really depends.</p>
<p>I’m a chem major - you’re going to be required to take a couple physics and math classes as well since you obviously can’t understand chem without a solid physics/calc background. Basically, most of your classes will be courses for your major, but you get electives as well, which you can use to take courses in other subjects (or extra electives in your own major). Most colleges have some “general education” requirements as well, but usually this is only 2-4 classes and not really a big deal at all, it’s not like high school at all…</p>
<p>in many colleges, the science/engineering majors have more requirements than other majors so double-majoring in chem and something else might be hard. I’m double majoring and I needed a bunch of summer classes to squeeze everything in. if you’re just majoring in chem, you’ll have plenty of extra electives to take other stuff too.</p>
<p>Chem also tends to be one of the majors with the most requirements. Here, the various Chem majors tend to require around 30 classes, compared to 22 for Math and 16 for History.</p>