<p>I have a strong interest in 3 different subjects: Computer Science, Biology, and Psychology. I'm a dual-enrolled high school student, so I will have an AA degree by the time I graduate high school, and then transfer to a university, where I'm expected to spend only 2 years. But what if I spend 4 years there, will a triple major still be hard? I don't really plan on going to med school, but I might consider it later. I just know that I'm sincerely interested in all 3 of these subjects. I'm already determined to major in CS, so if I'm doing a double major, I'll have to choose between Biology and Psychology. Which one would be better? When it comes to job outlook? Money? If I go to med school? I might go to vet school, I'm thinking of being a vet, but I'm still unsure.
Honestly, do you think this will be too hard? I'll already have my gen ed classes out of the way. I've also thought about minoring in music. But I wouldn't care that much if I didn't do it. And either way, I will take classes in foreign languages, without pursuing any major or minor, just because I like foreign languages.</p>
<p>Good job! If you want to be a vet then skip CS and psyche and do bio, zoology, and whatever classes to become a vet. Skilled vets with a medical background make Dr. salaries with good benefits and working conditions. There is too great a supply of CS and psyche majors in comparison to the economic demand.</p>
<p>Thanks for your insight!</p>
<p>Triple major/4 years in college: If you graduate high school with an AA degree, let’s assume that you’ll have 60 semester hours of credits when you enter college. Let’s also assume that each of the three majors that interest you, require at least 30 semester hours of credits. That’s 90 semester hours. Biology would also require at least 18-30 hours of supporting coursework in math, chemistry, and physics. Computer science might require some additional math coursework. If you spent 4 years in college, you would have 120 semester hours to work with. So, yes, you possibly could do three majors. How possible this would be depends on whether you’ve already taken some prerequisite courses prior to entering college; whether all of your credits transfer; and, whether the particular school to which you transfer has some gen ed requirements you haven’t already completed. Of course, squeezing in three majors doesn’t leave much room for doing any research, writing an undergrad thesis, taking upper-level electives outside your majors (either related to those majors or to emerging interests), language courses, or music courses.</p>
<p>Single major/2 years in college: If you completed your undergrad degree in 2 years instead of spending 4 years to pursue 3 majors, you could finish a master’s degree or start med school or vet school 2 years earlier. In fact, a masters degree might enhance your application for admission to professional school or for certain doctoral research fields.</p>
<p>Double majors: Since youre determined to major in CS, lets assume you do. Also, since you might consider going to med school later and youre thinking of being a vet, you also should complete the prerequisites for med school and vet school. At a minimum, these consist of a 2 semesters each of general biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, general physics, and calculus. Depending on which med or vet schools to which you might apply, there might be some additional required or recommended prerequisites. Other than those prerequisites, you can major in whatever you like. So, CS + Psychology could be a good combination, for example, if you are interested in cognitive science. Music could fit into this as well if you have an interest in areas such as cognitive aspects of music. Your interest in languages might also fit into certain areas of cognitive science as well as linguistics. Since you might complete the required premed courses, you also would have a good background for neuroscience. CS + Biology also might be a good combination, especially if you had an interest in certain areas of genetics or in computational biology or bioinformatics. Since you might complete the required premed courses, you would already have the required supporting courses for a major in biology. Although psychology is a good major for med school, it is less useful for vet school. Also, vet school tends to have more recommended courses beyond the basic prerequisites, e.g., nutrition, microbiology, etc. so a biology major might be better if you were leaning toward vet school. </p>
<p>Other comments: If you dont get into med or vet school, or decide not to go, you probably would need to think about a graduate degree if you wanted to do something in biology or psychology. Of course, you could do a master’s in microbiology, for example, and then apply to med or vet school. With biology major, you also could apply to certain psychology grad programs, e.g., neuropsychology. </p>
<p>If you do a CS major + either biology or psychology, theres no particular reason you have to make these majors relate to each other. They could simply be two separate areas of interest that you pursue.</p>
<p>I’d say CS + Biology would be a great combination, and you can take psychology classes on the side. Biology is useful if you become a vet / doctor, computer science is useful pretty much everywhere, plus computational biology is a growing field so you could easily combine the interests.</p>
<p>That was a pretty helpful post. I think a double major would be much better than a triple major now. Plus I’d have time to do more things like music, undergrad thesis, research, etc., like you said. I feel kinda dumb now for figuring med school and vet school had the same prereqs. I’ll need to research that some more. Thanks alot for the advice. Really helped.</p>
<p>Start your four year college, and then decide. The most important thing is to pick one major that you for sure want your degree in, be it biology or cs. While taking classes for your major, take classes in other departments, be it bio, psych, music or what have you. There’s no reason to sacrifice taking classes that really interest you just to complete a second major or triple major. You’ll do yourself a disservice if you purposefully try to finish a second or third major that you don’t plan on using, because then you’d sacrifice your time in college with classes that you may not be into just to finish a second/third major, than actually taking classes that would have enriched you but would not have fulfilled a second or third major/minor.</p>