I’m looking at doing a triple major in Economics, Social Policy/Sociology, and Computer Science for my undergrad (the idea is to continue on to Law school after). It will add about a year to my degree but I’m interested in all three fields and think they complement each other well. Do you think they are a good fallback in case I don’t end up getting into law or decide against it for some reason?
Ideally I’d like to attend an Ivy League law school later on and although they don’t list any particular major requirements I’m guessing they still look at what you studied.
What are your thoughts on my planned triple major and triple majors in general (aside from added time and cost which I don’t mind investing)?
I wouldn’t triple major. I really don’t think doing so adds that much or any advantage and IMO is definitely not worth another year of school in terms of time and $$. You could always double major and minor in one subject or 1 major and 2 minors.
I don’t have the option of an official minor. I can only take majors and electives so I could take a double major and electives in the third field (probably Social Policy/Sociology because the other two are pretty large majors and taking a few electives wouldn’t mean much). If I did this then only the majors would be documented.
If I do Economics/CS double major then the degree would take 4.5 yrs because of prerequisites and their size. Adding Social Policy/Sociology as a major would only add a semester.
Why do you want to double major?
Taking a few electives certainly “means much.” It depends on what you want to learn. You can take electives in computer science, for example, to learn programming. Are you actually interested in data structures and software architecture? That’s fine, too, but there’s a lot you can take from a field by learning a few basics in it. Economics, too. Really, you pick a major so you can study one thing in some depth - or maybe two complementary things.
Depending on where you go, a semester could be an additional $20-35,000. $35,000 is the sum total of ALL my debt from college through graduate school.
I’m really interested in Computer Science, not programming but systems and algorithms and I’d like to combine the study of systems with the study of Economics in postgrad which is why I want to double major. I’ll be doing a joint thesis on the two.
$40-35000? uhm no 
not for me at least. More like $4 000 for an extra semester.
I’ve got scheduling conflicts that will force me to stay that extra semester which is why I considered taking more units and staying another semester for the third major (I didn’t plan it originally but figured it might help with the LSAT). To clarify what I wrote above, I would like to do a combined MSc/JD later on.
I think if your plan is to study something combining economics and CS then double majoring in the two makes sense. I think then you can just take some classes in sociology or social policy to fill in what you want to know about those fields.
Also, consider this: you think it’ll take you an extra semester just on the basis of how many credits you need. But think about scheduling. Even if the credits would theoretically take you 10 semesters, the way the classes are scheduled may make it harder than you think to complete a triple major.
Yeah you might be right about the sociology/social policy bit. I’ve had a look into it and while I could cram it in a semester it would not be my classes of choice. Probably not worth doing then.
I’ll most likely just stick to the double major and take electives from the third…