<p>Hey, I'm looking to go to University of Miami, and I figure that if I get into the Foote Fellows program (no general ed requirements) and get good scores on the rest of my APs, I could do this triple major. Is this suicide?</p>
<p>What is the point of doing it? I think that is the main point. </p>
<p>I don’t think people will care if you triple since those three subjects are so related. If you are interested in taking UD courses in those subjects, then it might be worth it. If not, then I would just skip it. Getting a part-time job, doing an internship, doing research, and graduating earlier is better than stacking up on those majors.</p>
<p>This isn’t suicide. It is just simply hard to justify the benefit.</p>
<p>Pick a science then get a business degree or some other degree that will actually get you a decent job as the second major.</p>
<p>You folks thinking about double-majors (in unrelated disciplines) and triple-majors will end up with gray hair and balding by age 27…good grief.</p>
<p>a science degree is worth 0. What is 3X0?</p>
<p>SS, unlike people, not all degree’s are created equal. A science degree isn’t exactly worthless. It really depends on the type of science. Look at it this way, at least it’s not a Liberal Arts degree. Now liberal arts degrees are worthless. They teach no technical skill at all, and many of them are for hipsters or jocks that just want to get a easy degree, without working for it. On the otherhand, science degree’s at least teach laboratory techniques, which is useful in industry. It may not be the best pay, but you still have the advantage over liberal arts and social science folks, excluding Economics. However SS, I do agree with you on that, if you want something that is more stable, go with something like finance, accounting, economics. Although accounting is in danger of being outsourced as well. In fact it already has been, but not as much as science, due to the fact that there are far more intelligent foreign scientists, than American scientists. Anyway, don’t triple major. Its a waste of time, and employers will look down on it, since it makes it look like you are indecisive.</p>
<p>A science degree teaches lab skills that are poorly valued in today’s job market. If you are looking for useful technical skills an IT or engineering degree kicks a science degree’s rear-end.</p>
<p>If we consider the value of a degree as the total increase in salary over the HS grad only minus the opportunity costs lost while getting it minus the cost of tuition then a science degree is not only worthless it is less than worthless.</p>
<p>Alright, I’m going to be going into marine biology, knowing that it’s not the most well paying job. I don’t give a crap that the job market’s slim, at least at Miami I have a chance to go further by going to grad school. I want to go into something that I would enjoy doing. To all of you who think I shouldn’t, you can keep your opinions to yourself. All I was asking is if a triple major is too much (I’ll be at least double majoring, since the marine science program at Miami is a required double major)</p>
<p>And to each their own. Good luck to you, seems to me like you have your goal in line. That double major should not be too strenuous since the subject matter contains a lot of overlap.</p>
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<p>Science is a subset of liberal arts.</p>
<p>Some liberal arts degrees are much more in demand than others by employers. E.g. math, physics, economics > biology, chemistry, humanities.</p>
<p>WHy study bio and chem separately? Just do biochemistry. Either way, a degree in bio or chemistry is worthless. The ACS has recently been on its knees begging people to renew their memberships, memberships which people have been canceling due to the massive unemployment rate of chemists. People just don’t get it or refuse to believe it–the US is no longer the super power it once was. There is no manufacturing left. R and D is toast. Where exactly do all our scientists and engineers find jobs? They don’t, it’s as simple as that. It’s 3rd world USA. The US has severe structural problems that won’t be able to be fixed for decades, if ever. The age of prosperity is OVER. Get used to it people. The jobs in the current future: Janitor, train conductor, waiter/tress, RN, nurses aide, pharm assistants, etc, etc. In other words, all low paying service jobs that can’t be outsourced.</p>
<p>There is no marine science and biochemistry major, there’s either marine science and biology or marine science and chemistry. If I choose to triple major, it would have to be bio and Chem and marine science.</p>
<p>If you are wondering about job and career prospects, your three possible majors are probably the three worst science majors in terms of job and career prospects. So it is not like they will help you upgrade your job and career prospects at graduation.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t do it for the career aspects, I’d do it to make myself more competitive for grad school. I’m planning on going to Miami for grad school as well as undergrad, and the competition for the rosenstiel school of marine and atmospheric science is extremely high. I’m hoping to get at least a masters and most likely a Ph.D in marine biology, it’s not like I’m banking on the B.S. to get me a job straight out of college.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t bank on the PhD. either. There are a (very) few jobs for marine biologists mostly with the fed govt or academia, but the competition for those jobs will be killer. There is a huge glut of scientists with PhD’s in chemistry and more so with biology degrees. Most likely you will be post-docing after graduating with slim chances of ever getting a viable job.</p>
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This has two misconceptions.</p>
<p>1) Coursework and majors aren’t everything. The marine science/biology combination at Miami is more than sufficient for your needs, particularly since it requires the physics/chem/math courses you need for grad school. If you want to take additional science courses, feel free, but there is no need to add another science major. As iTransfer said, research would be MUCH more beneficial. </p>
<p>2) I strongly discourage students from attending the same school for graduate studies. Selecting a different school exposes you to (slightly) different research, different research/teaching approaches, and gives you a larger networking pool. Additionally, Miami is not quite as highly regarded at the graduate level as for undergraduate, where it’s certainly tops - though it is still excellent, of course. MIT and Scripps are the gold standard for oceanography, though naturally it depends on your subfield (e.g. URI and Texas A&M fit my own interests better). </p>
<p>Remember that college is the last time you’ll have access to such a broad array of classes, so take advantage of that. Rather than stacking on an additional science major, which is overkill, try learning a new language or taking a course in economics or philosophy. Miami has a lot to offer its undergrads.</p>
<p>sschoe2 is unfortunately correct about the job prospects for marine biology. The job outlook is reasonably decent if you have an interest in the hot topics right now (fisheries management, applied ocean science like seaweed research, climate and microfossil research, etc.), but certainly the jobs most people would like (vertebrate or mammal biology, aquarium management, etc.) are relatively few and far between. That said, I’ve never been one to warn students away from a field they love – I would be absolutely bored to tears doing business or engineering, and I’m sure many others feel the same.</p>
<p>Look, I know you’re trying to destroy my dream here, but the job market for marine biology is expanding, and regardless of job opportunity I’m still going to pursue it to the best of my ability. Again, this isn’t supposed to be a “bash science majors” thread, I intended to just get advice on whether a triple major is suicide or not. Please stop telling me why a science degree is worthless, because it’s getting extremely old and annoying. For all who have actually given me advice on what I had asked, thank you very much.</p>
<p>Warblersrule, thank you for your insight. Again, I know that jobs are scarce, and I know that the majority of jobs aren’t in the most popular fields. But I know that Miami is the best place for me, especially because the Rosenstiel school is in fact world renowned as a grad school, and is among the best along with Scripps and Woods Hole. I will take your advice to get involved in research instead of triple majoring into thought though.</p>
<p>Indeed I am trying to destroy your dream so you will wake up before it is too late. Companies and govts are not going to be throwing money at stuff like studying fish and dolphins. If you are interested in the ocean, the money and jobs will be in drilling for oil offshore and dealing with climatology related to global warming. If you are interested in fish have an aquarium and join a club. At your age people probably bombarded you with do what you love and the money will follow and major in what you like or similar tripe and cliches. It doesn’t work like that anymore.</p>