Trying to keep major options open

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>I am currently a freshman, and interested in the sciences, but otherwise pretty undecided about my major. In high school I found my math and science classes the most interesting and excelled at them. </p>

<p>My problem is that I'm struggling to keep my options for all these science majors open, since they are all so prerequisite heavy. At the same time, I really believe in the liberal arts experience of taking classes in the humanities to become a well-rounded person. </p>

<p>This semester I took intro to bio, intro to engineering, intro to chem, and intro to econ. I realized that I cannot handle a schedule with this many time-consuming labs and I don't enjoy the large intro lectures, although I know I enjoy the subject itself. I still haven't explored math, physics, and computer science yet, but thank god I have AP credits for all them so I'm not "behind" the major track. Next semester I've signed up for Organic Chemistry, Linear Algebra, and Physics, but this means giving up majoring in engineering or exploring other random subjects like Art History or Black Studies. </p>

<p>What should I do? If I have to close the door to certain major options, how should I choose if I enjoy all of them?</p>

2

<p>Which do you feel you’re best at? Which do you like the most? What do you think will pay the best? Which one can you picture yourself doing for the rest of your life? What kind of job do you want in the future? Are there any joint/double major options?</p>

<p>If you want to be able to take humanities, look at the engineering programs’ GE requirements, do they still give you freedom to go exploring random subjects?</p>

<p>In terms of what to take, I’d say look at the pre-reqs of the various engineering majors, and go for classes that most of them require. You’ll probably need most of the lower div maths, and some amount of physics for anything engineering related.</p>

<p>Honestly though, if you’ve taken your basic high school classes, I’m not sure why you’re trying to explore so much now. You should have a general idea of what physics is, or what you do in math classes (pure math tends towards proofs). You should know that chemistry involves molecular structures, stoichiometry, whatever. Even if you enjoy all your classes, there’s got to be some that you prefer to others. What does your gut feeling tell you to do?</p>

3

<p>Check each major for its prerequisite sequences to see what are the highest priority courses to take.</p>

<p>Physics and engineering usually have the longest prerequisite sequences, so their courses are often the most critical to stay on track with.</p>

<p>Which specific majors are you most strongly considering?</p>

4

<p>I’m attracted to all these science fields because the lifestyle of a researcher and making contributions of new knowledge really appeals to me. So far, computational genomics, molecular bio, and international economics are what appeals to me the most. I’m probably going to grad school after college.</p>

<p>So that leaves, econ, CS, math, bio as potential majors? These majors also have ton of pre-reqs though. I’m probably going to take as many math classes as I can, since it’s useful for everything, and I’m probably dropping engineering because it leaves no room for me to take other classes I’m interested in. I’m not that interested in chemistry, but being a molecular bio major requires you to take a lot of chemistry anyways. </p>

<p>I just feel unfulfilled that since these majors are the most popular, my college career is being spent taking prereqs in giant intro lecture classes, and it’s just not the kind of class I learn well in. I’m very jealous of humanities majors that have tiny seminars starting freshman year. I’m the kind of person that loves taking GE requirements in random subjects, like linguistics and politics and philosophy, and my schedule feels very restricted.</p>

<p>Should I just choose a major now and abandon the other tracks so I have more freedom to take a variety of GE classes?</p>

5

<p>Stick with engineering for now, you’ll be better off in the long run. Even if you don’t major in it</p>

6

<p>What you may want to do is try to map out an 8 semester schedule for each major based on its prerequisite sequences and major requirements, and try to combine them to see how many semesters you can go before you have to decide. Think of it as a logic puzzle or something like that (should not be too hard a problem if you are good enough at math to consider majoring in math or CS).</p>

<p>Note that biology has the weakest job and career prospects out of the four majors you mention. See the <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys.html&lt;/a&gt; .</p>

7

<p>ThisisMichigan,</p>

<p>Why do you say engineering is the best major to stick with? What about it makes it so useful, more so than other science majors?</p>

<p>I have been majoring CS or math, since it’s easier to pick up the bio on my own if I choose to pursue computational biology in the future. In that case, is it still important for me to take Orgo?</p>

8

<p>Given your interests - and given that you want to be a researcher and pursue a PhD and a research career - I’d say that a basic liberal arts major in the physical sciences with some breadth is the best choice for you. Personally, given your interests, I would choose math or computer science with a minor in math.</p>

<p>My reasoning:</p>

<p>1) Math is a good foundation for literally anything, at least anything you are interested in. If you later decide you want to be an engineer, you can get an MS in engineering after taking a few prerequisites; if you decide you want to go into computer science, you have the mathematical part; if you decide that you want to go into economics, your mathematical/quantitative background will be useful. Even if you decided you wanted to go into the social sciences, mathematical modeling and quant methods are huge parts of that. Business folks value mathematics majors, too, because you can learn data mining and modeling of future risk and profit.</p>

<p>2) Being a liberal arts major, a math major will give you the leeway to take other classes in other fields. It’s a standard 40-hour major (as opposed to engineering). So it’ll make it easier to explore your interests in the humanities and social sciences.</p>

<p>3) At many schools, computational courses can count as “cognate courses” towards your major in math. So let’s say you’re a math major; once you take the calculus sequence and linear algebra - and maybe a class like set theory and transition to modern mathematics or whatever - about 3-5 of your electives can be from other departments. My husband is a math major at our Ivy, and as major electives in addition to the classes offered in the math department he can take CS, physics, astronomy, operations research, economics, and even a philosophy course in logic. The requirement is only that the class must require two semesters of calculus to count. That gives you even further leeway to explore.</p>

<p>4) If you’re not sure where your career or research interests lie just yet, but you know they require a lot of math and computational science and they’re in the physical sciences, math is an excellent major. It’ll give you that background. And most departments - from physical sciences to social sciences and even life sciences - value that one kid who knows more mathematically than everyone else.</p>

<p>Given your interests, though, you may want to take some basic biology courses (equivalent to a minor) and some basic economics courses (equivalent to a minor, or maybe a bit more). For the research you listed, doing a math major with minors in biology and econ will prepare you well. Assuming the math major is 40 credits and each minor is 20 credits, that’s 80 credits, but that still leaves you with another 40 credits (about 10 classes) of exploration.</p>