Triple major... is this feasible or am I crazy?

Parents Forum
1

<p>Alright. So I want to triple major in Supply Chain Management, Business Data Analytics, and Economics. I will have over 40 credits from AP/Dual Enrollment/CLEP. They are all within the same business school so each major will only be 18 credit hours more on top of my 120 hours. </p>

<p>But since I have a good amount of credits from high school, it should add up to something like this: 120 (one major) - 44 (credits from hs) + 18 (Business Data major) + 18 (Econ major) + 18 (Spanish minor) = 130 Credits... to complete within 4 years.</p>

<p>I know I will have to sacrifice a couple summers, but its this worth it? Will employers look down on this?</p>

<p>I want to work in economic development/ be an economic intelligence analyst and I believe that supply chain plays a huge role in a business/ country's economics.. not to mention the school I am interested in one of the top business schools in the country and ranked 3rd in Supply Chain.
No rude answers please!</p>

2

<p>

</p>

<p>Why would they look down on the efforts of a dedicated student? </p>

<p>To answer your question, your intended majors (if that is the current term here) are sufficiently related that it should be doable. Now, if outsiders will consider the panoply of courses as true majors is another question. But then, in general terms, the semantics used in defining majors, dual or double majors, and the slew of minors if often laughable. </p>

<p>Fwiw, you should be aware that not all schools allow students to enter the business school as freshman and require minimum GPA. This might be harder to accomplish with overly full schedules. I think that such is the case at ASU. </p>

<p>All in all, attempt multiple majors (be it what they are) if you have your heart set on specializing in those areas. Do not do it to please outsiders or future employers.</p>

3

<p>I went to school with quite a few people who had majors that, with only a few extra classes, would give them triple majors. For example, Water and Soil majors only had to add a few classes to also get degrees in chemistry and biology. Most did.</p>

<p>Your classes are all in the same college, so it is doable. Often if the subjects are in different colleges the requirements are different. A classmate of mine was a Recreation major (B.S.) but had enough credits for a history major (college of Arts and Sciences, a B.A.). She did not have the basics for a BA, including a foreign language, so it was a no go.</p>

<p>Why don’t you plan on it and then see if it works out. If half way through you find it is too much, drop down to just one or two majors.</p>

4

<p>College- if this career path is indeed the one you want to take, you will be better off using the classes that would consume a third major by taking history, political science, etc. Don’t shortchange your actual education by cramming in a third major which you really don’t need.</p>

<p>You are much more marketable if you really understand the difference between Brazil and India’s experience over the last 20 years, or if you have a deep historical context as to why China’s development has so markedly differed from the former Soviet Union, despite both countries moving to a market economy.</p>

<p>Don’t let the verbiage interfere with your education. Get educated- that’s the most important thing. Unless you plan to actually get a job in corporate logistics, I don’t think the supply chain major is going to help you the way you think it will. And unless you attended the best HS on the planet, those HS credits aren’t as helpful as you think they are and are really not a substitute for a college class taken for credit at your actual university.</p>

<p>I would not argue the point that a country’s infrastructure plays a huge rule in its economic development, but you don’t need to major in supply chain to understand how and why, anymore than you don’t need to major in Civil Engineering to understand why bridges and tunnels and airports are important to a countries supply chain. To me, the third major will have you spread so thin- and with such limited upside- that it’s just not worth it.</p>

<p>Go take a class in Anarchy/Communism/Capitalist theory, or a class comparing Mao/Stalin and Lenin. Take a class on British Maritime History. Take a class on Colonialism in Africa and Latin America.</p>

<p>Much more useful than learning how to model algorithms for getting the yogurt from the plant to the grocery store, based on what you plan to do.</p>

5

<p>What your diploma and transcript says at the top is primarily only of interest to you. As one who used to do a fair amount of hiring of college hires (now retired), I would always ask for a college transcript. I was interested in what classes you took and what grades you received that were relevant to the job being offered. What the major(s) was(were) was of little interest to me.</p>

<p>I did make an exception to those that took a lot of business classes in addition to a vary different field (such as engineering in my case). I found that those people expected to jump into management right away without learning the field they were interested in. I downgraded those big time. This is not the case for you.</p>

<p>It seems like you have a definite plan for a career. You don’t need to “major” in all three fields to embark on that path. You can take classes in each of those areas, just not major in all of them. Getting thru college with an adequate background and minimum time and cost should be the goal.</p>

6

<p>Make sure you check any rules your school has regarding multiple majors, if you haven’t done so already. Some schools have rules about what you can double major in, and how many courses need to be unique to each major. For example, my school didn’t allow students to double major in two majors within the same school or department, and students were required to have 40 upper division units (10 classes) unique to each major. So at my school, no, this triple major probably would not be feasible (or even allowed), but at your school, it might be. Just make sure you check all of the policies to see if there’s anything that could make it difficult. Graduating with multiple majors isn’t just about adding credits.</p>

<p>Also make sure that you check if there are any limits to the amount of units you are allowed to take total (and per semester), and check to see how much it would cost to take summer (or extra courses), if there’s an extra fee. Plan out your schedule (not just the amount of units but the actual courses), and see if there are any courses that aren’t offered very often (maybe once a year or once every other year) or don’t have multiple sections (only offered at one particular time). It’s possible that classes you have to take may conflict throughout your years there, so you’re going to want to try to schedule in some flexibility, if possible. That’ll give you a better idea if it’s something that feasible or not.</p>

<p>And remember that giving up your summers isn’t just about giving up your free time. Every summer you sacrifice taking extra courses is a summer that you could have spent doing an internship or working full time to save money for the school year. Your summers aren’t a time to just sit around and do nothing. It’s a time when you have the flexibility to work full time and gain valuable work experience. The money you spend on summer courses is money that you could use to support yourself during the school year and perhaps give you the flexibility to take an unpaid opportunity that would give you valuable experience. Employers won’t look down on you for having a triple major, but if you’re competing against someone who has one major and tons of relevant work experience, then your triple major isn’t going to take you very far. Just keep that in mind. College is a time to learn, but getting actual experience is what is going to give you a leg up on your competition when you graduate, not adding on other majors.</p>

7

<p>Would this major combination be strong if I want to work in Humanitarian logistics/economic development? And yes I definetly plan on doing internships for at least 2 summers, but I’m sure I will have to spend my freshman year summer taking classes!</p>

8

<p>Becoming fluent in a foreign language will be much more beneficial to you than adding a third major. You also need to develop expertise in the culture than you want to work in/with. Things don’t happen in a vacuum, and development doesn’t always track with an algorithm.</p>

<p>It’s very good that you have some concrete ideas about what areas might be of interest to you. When you get on campus, take classes all across the board and see what actually piques your interest. Find professors who do work that interests you to be your mentors.</p>

<p>You will figure it out as you go.</p>

9

<p>What are humanitarian logistics? People who work in disaster relief (i.e. Haiti) don’t have degrees in humanitarian anything- they are doctors and nurses and construction managers and civil engineers and public health administrators.</p>

<p>You do not need a major which has the same name as a job you might be interested in getting. And if you are still in HS I think you are focused on the wrong things entirely.
It’s great if you know that you are interested in the developing world. But there are careers and disciplines that you’ve never even heard of that you might decide you want to do. There are people with banking backgrounds who now lead microfinance organizations- which many people believe are the best way to lift communities out of poverty. There are people who have degrees in statistics who help the companies which develop vaccines map how pandemics spread. There are people who major in accounting who work with governments overseas to improve the transparency and reporting of their financial systems so they can attract foreign investment.</p>

<p>You should not be planning to clog your schedule with a triple major- you should be planning to take as many cool and interesting classes as possible in your Econ major so you can figure out where you want to work eventually.</p>

<p>And be prepared to change your mind!</p>

10

<p>Have you actually checked whether the 44 credits from AP or whatever will give you applicable subject credit, rather than mostly free elective credits (that tend to be fairly useless if you are trying to pack two or three majors into your eight semesters)?</p>

<p>Whether the second or third major will actually be of value to your future plans, compared to choosing one major and taking electives of interest in the other subjects, is another question.</p>

11

<p>Yeah @ucbalumnus they all transfer and cover gen ed credits</p>

12

<p>I’m looking at your university’s major requirements and am not understanding how each major will only be 18 hours. The supply chain management major requires 10 courses, all of which are very specific to supply chain management, which I’m assuming are 3 credits each = 30 hours. Then I looked at the economics requirements; there is zero overlap between the economics major requirement and the SCM requirements (although there are some classes that you have to take through the business school, like Fundamentals of Finance and Organization and Management Leadership, but those are not part of the 10 courses you have to take to get a BS in SCM).</p>

<p>Take a look: [Program</a> of Study | W. P. Carey School of Business](<a href=“http://wpcarey.asu.edu/supply-chain-management-degrees/undergraduate/pos]Program”>http://wpcarey.asu.edu/supply-chain-management-degrees/undergraduate/pos)
<a href=“https://webapp4.asu.edu/programs/t5/roadmaps/ASU00/BAECNBS/2013[/url]”>https://webapp4.asu.edu/programs/t5/roadmaps/ASU00/BAECNBS/2013&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The business data analytics major requirements are not up yet, but I’m imagining they’re largely separate too.</p>

<p>Also, remember that you don’t just have to rack up credits - you have to take some of these classes in sequence. For example, you have to take SCM 300 before you can take SCM 345, which you have to take before you can take SCM 432, which you have to take before you can take SCM 479. There are sequences like that in economics, too. While it may be relatively easy to organize your earlier classes because there are more sections, the upper-level classes may have one or two sections that conflict with other classes.</p>

<p>Now. Given what you actually want to do - be an economic intelligence analyst - you definitely do not need to triple-major, especially not in these three majors. Economics majors already learn analytics; it’s part of the major. You’ll have to take econometrics, and if you look at the econ requirements you’ll have to take classes in regression analysis, mathematical economics, and econometric analysis. ASU also has a department of statistics and probability and a department of computer science, so you can augment your studies with classes from those departments as well as this new program in business data analytics. Really, the major skills you will need are 2) an understanding of basic economic principles, 2) statistical analysis chops, and 3) an understanding of programming and certain CS concepts like data mining and machine learning.</p>

<p>If you really think that supply chain has a huge role and you think that you want to study supply chain specifically in your analysis, then take some SCM classes. But the SCM major is designed for people who want to go into SCM and logistics as a career.</p>

<p>I also really agree with baktrax. The key to getting jobs in the kind of field you want is experience - experience working on analytical projects with people already in the field doing economic analysis and policy development, ESPECIALLY if you want to work for the feds or for a prestigious NGO/nonprofit/think tank. You really need the summer to have the flexibility to go away and do an internship at RAND or the Treasury or wherever.</p>

<p>Would this major combination be strong if I want to work in Humanitarian logistics/economic development?</p>

<p>No, not necessarily. They want people with a strong understanding of economics, fluency in a foreign language or two, and experience doing this kind of stuff. You can major in economics, minor in Spanish and then spend your summers volunteering or interning with NGOs that do humanitarian work and be FAR better off.</p>

13

<p>It might be mentioned already, but ask the department’s advisor about a possible self-designed major.</p>

14

<p>Do you really want to spend the entirety of your college experience taking nothing but business classes? I certainly hope not but that is what you will do if you triple major. I teach in a college of business, and with all honesty, I will say that most business classes are not good. It’s the same theme over and over and over again. Yawn.</p>

<p>Do a quant econ major. Supplement it with a few extra quant courses, a some extra political science/history/geography courses and be done. You will be a far better person for it.</p>

15

<p>I agree with the others. Dbl major if you fancy that. Take a serious regimen of foreign lang classes or better yet, add a semester abroad. As a hiring manager, that would give me something I’d like – not the image of your being a souless book nerd/robot.</p>

<p>I just interviewed a young lady (for college) who wants to pursue bio. She had zero ability to discuss the broader society needs or concerns about what research can bring about. Maybe one day she’ll be a great technician/research aide – but not impressive in comparison to the competitive pool for my alma mater.</p>

16

<p>Make sure you have time to do internships in the summer and/or during the school year. Relevant work experience is very important in landing a good job out of college.</p>