Hi I am a highly motivated high school student who is very creative and wants to help people. I don’t really know what I should major in /where I stand on getting into certain colleges. I love art. I am obsessed with visual implementation of ideas and thinking in new ways. I have won awards, etc. and am a serious art student in and out of school and I never stop making art…and i never want to. But I also have a deep interest in academics specifically philosophy, english, history, politics, writing/journalism, social sciences. I really want to help suffering people. I think it is my responsibility to use the privilege I have (my education, lifestyle provided by my parents etc.) as leverage to help other people. I don’t know how I should start from there though.
Sometimes I feel like I’m just a spoiled brat who needs to learn how to make choices, but I really want to continue in both academics and art and somehow find a way to seriously help people through it. That’s a lot to ask of a college major i know but do you guys have any suggestions on colleges/college programs or majors if I’m double majoring in art or suggestions on what I should do with my life? 
Also I’m planning on working throughout most of college with a part time job… do you think this is possible with a double major to graduate in 4 years? I am committed to hard work but I don’t have super powers… please be brutally honest. Also if you have any advice for college jobs that would be great. I will be taking out loans and my parents will help but I really need to be able to stand for myself after college/in grad school and not be in so much debt. @-)
In high school I have been involved in peer leadership (exec board), art clubs, the schools art and literary magazine editing, feature editor of school newspaper, track&field, peer jury, tutoring, (progressively bigger involvement in all as I got older).
dean’s list every quarter, national latin exam awards, art awards, internship, NHS, NAHS
summers: took classes at art colleges, worked at local places
ACT: 32; gpa: my school has a weird system because like it is supposed to be out of 5 but if you got all As in all honors it would be a 6…I’m at a 5.2 possibly 5.3… my freshman year gpa was drastically worse because I was going through some stuff. Also I get As in the honors/aps i take but in math, which I’m less interested in and take regular level… I get Bs
Scores/gpa not that impressive but teachers like me so I think i will have good letters of rec
I go to a public high school in the Chicagoland suburbs and I sort of want to get away but if there is a school nearby you can see me at by all means mention it.
I need some direction please help
THANK YOU i really appreciate anyone’s help
visual arts + technology + helping disabled people could be a career path. HUman/machine interaction may interest you, too. Digital humanities may be of interest, as is data science/visual representation for a variety of fields.
but you don’t have to decide right now.
All you need is a college without a “core” (ie., not Chicago, not Columbia), preferably rather open curriculum or that includes art and CS/technology as part of its requirements, and that offer majors in both areas ( even if you don’t end up majoring in both, or even either one, you’ll know you’re good.)
A good safety would be UNC Ashevill, artist colony AND only Mechatronics major in North Carolina.
You could major in literally anything and help people. Seriously. There are resource-poor nations that need infrastructure in business/accounting/finance, that need engineering projects completed, etc. One of my former students was an industrial design major who combined art and engineering principles to design health-related products; she won an award (and now has her own company) for inventing a low-water usage latrine that can be used in countries without high access to water for toilets.
Thoughts:
-You don’t have to avoid colleges with a core curriculum to double major. You can double major at Columbia or Chicago, and many students do. The core curriculum at these schools is basically just a beefed up version of the gen eds people take at other schools. For example, instead of requiring you to take any social science class of your choice, Columbia simply requires everyone to take the same social science class (Contemporary Civilization). Same thing with music and art (Music Hum and Art Hum). It’s still roughly the same number of requirements, though.
-You don’t have to major in art to continue to do art. You can do art as a hobby, as a part-time job, or you can minor in it, or you can just take classes in it. If you want to continue doing art, just continue doing it.
-You don’t have to pick a major now. You can take classes in some of the areas you’re interested in and decide later.
One suggestion for doubling it, though, might be the five-year Brown/RISD dual degree program. You get a BA from Brown and a BFA from RISD. http://risd.brown.edu/
Do you know of any other dual degree programs other than the RISD and Brown one? I have scoured the internet and the only other one of those I could find is the Tufts/SMFA one. Do you think there are more out there than these? Thank you for your help!
You should look at Amherst College, it has no core curriculum, and the only requirements revolve around the major you pick. Lets you easily take classes across many fields.