Triple Major Woes: Economics, Political Science, and Philosophy

College Majors
1

I am a dual-enrolled high school senior about to graduate with both my high school diploma and my associate’s degree (AA). I will be attending New College of Florida starting in August 2015.

Here is my dilemma. I want to major in economics, political science, and philosophy. I looked at the requirements for each major, and it is actually possible for me to triple major and finish all three programs in 4 years. Economics is 10 classes, political science is 8 classes, and philosophy is 10 classes. 28 classes divided over a period of 8 semesters is 3-4 classes per semester. Assuming that New College of Florida accepts all of my classes from my AA to go towards my general education requirements, triple majoring in these three disciplines is technically possible. (For the purposes of this post, let’s just assume New College accepts all of my credits towards the fulfillment of my GE requirements; don’t attempt to lecture me about reality.)

The problem that I am having is that I like all three of these disciplines, as well as multiple specializations with each discipline, equally. I’m unable to choose between them. New College offers a “public policy” BA, but the problem with it is that I won’t be able to explore upper-level economics or upper-level political science; their public policy program is essentially the basic economics classes plus the basic political science classes meshed together (think taking two separate minors and creating a major out of it).

Realistically, I see myself being able to take on only a double major, leaving “wiggle room” for “wow-that-sounds-interesting” classes, as well as potential bumps in the road. I figured the best way to deduce which route I should take is to look at the potential futures they create. Please give me feedback about my theoretical roadmaps below. What makes the most sense to the un/biased third-party observer? Which degree paths match up best with the listed career goals?

(all options are double majors)

OPTION 1: ECONOMICS / POLITICAL SCIENCE (taking the occasional philosophy course)

End goal: Economics PhD and/or JD
Career Options: Wall Street / corporate law / law professor / economics professor / politician

OPTION 2: ECONOMICS / PHILOSOPHY (taking the occasional political science course)

End goal: Economics PhD or Philosophy PhD and/or JD
Career Options: Wall Street / corporate law / law professor / economics professor / philosophy professor / politician

OPTION 3: PHILOSOPHY / POLITICAL SCIENCE (taking the occasional economics course)

End goal: Philosophy PhD and JD
Career Options: Law / law professor / philosophy professor / politician

2

If you decide on a PhD in economics, some of your proposed pathways may not accommodate the necessary coursework in math.

3

Which pathways would not accommodate the math?

4

For a double major in economics + either philosophy or political science, you might have to give over a large part of your free electives to math coursework if you intend to pursue a PhD in economics. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but the most competitive doctoral programs in economics tend to want strong math backgrounds. http://academics.davidson.edu/economics/foley/gradschool.htm

5

I’ve already considered that, which is why I came to the conclusion that a triple major is highly unlikely. However, if I pursue only a double major, economics would be 10 classes, philosophy would be 10 classes, and I’d have 12 free elective spaces for math, political science, history, sociology, etc.

6

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should. Decisions can be hard to make, but (and I’m not saying this to sound snarky) from here on out they are a feature of adult life. You will have to make them. Sometimes they may seem more or less arbitrary, and that’s okay. On the list of life-altering decisions, your major is actually pretty far down the list, particularly if the choice is between two closely related fields.

If you like them all equally, one way to decide is to take a class in each during your first semester at NCF and try to decide based on which class you like the best. If you want to decide now, you can select one arbitrarily or try to pick based on the best post-grauate outcomes (economics offers the highest average starting salaries but philosophy offers the lowest recent grad unemployment rate. However, after 5 years of work experience economics and political science majors have roughly even unemployment rates, and philosophy’s is higher. Moreover, experienced college grads make more in economics [$75,000] and political science [$65,000] than they do in philosophy [$48,000]. The difference goes up even more if you get a grad degree.)

You should also know that right now the humanities market is really impacted and getting a tenure-track job as a philosophy professor is 1) unlikely for the majority of people who even finish a philosophy PhD and 2) takes a LOT of work and effort. The same is true of law professors.

However, economics PhDs have the best postgraduate outcomes of any PhD field - even engineering (I was doing a project on this last week, incidentally). If you go to a really top economics program, getitng a faculty position nearly assured. And even if you decide you don’t want to do that, there are plenty of lucrative options on Wall Street, in other corporate finance-type fields, in think tanks, NGOs, nonprofits…heck, even if you decided not to go to grad school, you still have lots of options.

SO. I think the economics/political science double major is the best option, taking a few classes in philosophy along the way.

If you do want to pursue an economics PhD, I think you will need at least 6 free elective spaces for math - calculus I-III, real analysis, and two probability and statistics classes. (Of course if you have already taken any of these you can subtract.)

Also, I know you said you didn’t want to be lectured about reality - but I find that baffling, because you are making plans by ignoring one fundamental aspect. Even if NCF takes all of your CC credits (which is very likely, given they’re a public college) there still might be some requirements that you can only fulfill at NCF! My husband transferred in 60 credits’ worth of work into Columbia, the maximum you could transfer, but he still had to take some core classes that you can’t satisfy with transfer credits. Many colleges have more or less of these kinds of courses that you have to take in residence. So find out if there are any of those. Your best bet might be to major in economics and minor in political science, especially since none of your options demonstrates an interest in studying political science on the graduate level.

7

You don’t have to make all of these decisions now. Part of the college experience is narrowing down what you are most interested in. You can start out putting yourself in a position to try to achieve the triple major. But if your interests change, or you can’t quite get into all of the classes in the proper order, you might end up doing a double major and a minor.

8

Thanks for all of the advice posted here. I think I am just going to have to show up and start taking classes to see what I like the most.