<p>I'm a history and international studies major right now and my minors are Arabic (language minor is mandatory as a history major), business (previously a business major so just took my classes and molded it into a minor), and psychology (this has been a minor since the start). I just declared an international studies major the other day b/c I want to do a masters in middle eastern studies so the int'l studies major is helping me get the middle east related classes I need... now I just realized that the second major will push me into an August 2010 graduation... I was supposed to graduate in May 2008 but that would be if I hadn't changed majors and gone part time a 3 semesters, etc... plus my first three years I had about a 2.4 gpa. Ever since I transferred to uni, I have a 3.6 gpa there and a 3.1 overall GPA. My history gpa is a 3.8 (I only have one B) and last semester I took 21 credits and achieved a 3.7.</p>
<p>So should I continue this second major, considering I've already taken 2 classes this semester that are required for the major... or should I just screw it and graduate in May 2010 with only one bachelors degree in history. I want to go to the University of Washington for my masters...</p>
<p>You have a lot of degrees in progress, and not all of them are related or necessary. An understanding of human nature is great, but will a psychology minor really help you in graduate school? I know it's tough to drop a degree when you have significant progress in it--it seems wasteful to have taken a class that isn't going to count for /something/--and sometimes it is worth it to take the last couple of courses to get the title, but you seem to be taking it a little far. I mean, you're already a super-senior, and you think you might as well pile on another major because you already have two classes in it? Those last few credit hours needed for your degrees could interfere with the opportunity to take courses that will be more useful for your ultimate goals.</p>
<p>The international studies major is not "helping you get the middle east related classes you need." You are not locked into a selection of classes you can take based on your major (unless some classes are open only to majors, which usually isn't the case unless you're in a huge department). Go crazy, take as many culture/language classes as you want without worrying about meeting this or that requirement. Unless the graduate program you're looking at requires an undergraduate degree in international relations, it won't matter whether you have the piece of paper with all five titles on it.</p>
<p>hmm.. well i only have one class left in the business and psych minors to fulfill the req's. I might as well do it. As for international studies, my primary region is the middle east... so it is helping me get the middle east classes I need. </p>
<p>Basically, if I don't do the second major I will be three credits away from getting a second bachelors. So if I do the second major in international studies, then I only have to take one class during summer 2010... which will more than likely be in may. Also my school charges extra tuition if I go over the required number of credits needed to graduate.</p>
<p>Truthfully, I don't think grad schools will look any different at someone with a dual degree or double major. I was close to the dual degree, but didn't think going into debt was worth it. </p>
<p>It may come off as judgmental, but it sounds like you lack some focus. You are doing better now, and for grad admissions, that's something you'd want to focus on in your essays. I think you would probably be better served not worrying about doing a second major. Six years is a long time to be in college, and you're better off working for a year before going back to school instead of racking up more debt.</p>
<p>Anyway, unless you're so close to completing all majors/minors, it's probably best to focus on one major and maybe two minors and get the hell out of school. It could seem like a waste for all those classes you took...but wouldn't you say that you kinda screwed up early on anyway with a 2.4 GPA? Chalk it up as a loss and don't think you have to rectify every misstep you happen to make.</p>
<p>Wow, you are in a predicament. I agree that you have so little classes left to fulfill the dual degree problem, but Carl is also right pointing out that it just looks like you have too many things on your plate.</p>
<p>It might help if we knew why you are going to get your masters specifically. What are your goals? </p>
<p>Remember too that you will more than likely get no financing for a masters degree so you will be incurring a lot more debt too. Good luck!</p>
<p>well either way, whether i do a double major or not, it's going to take me 6 yrs to graduate. so thats my whole point.. should i just double major and take one more class? </p>
<p>My parents pay for college so I don't really care about money... and I did lack focus b/c my parents made me do business or they weren't going to pay for college. So I changed my major to history w/o telling them. </p>
<p>I'm just thinking that maybe it will come off more negative if I only do one major and it took me six years to complete.. and every school I've looked into for middle eastern studies or islamic studies is really looking for a strong background in that area. The history dept at my uni doesn't offer very many middle east courses so i have to go outside of the dept to get those courses. I think I will stick to the double major.. most ppl graduate in 6 yrs anyways and thats with one major. Thanks for the advice though.</p>
<p>I eventually want to do a ph.d in middle eastern and/or islamic studies and get into research. With all this globalization going on and my Muslim b/g I think I can be an asset to the research field. plus I'm trilingual in Arabic, English, and Urdu...</p>
<p>nrl - okay, here is a little more advice which you may or may not know. Try and apply for a PhD instead of going for your masters. As I said you will rec'v little help if any with your masters but applying for your PhD you will more than likely get funding. Apply to many colleges so that you will be able to choose wisely.</p>
<p>Since I have little knowledge of your degree I am interested in what kind of research you would be doing after you get your PhD? It does sound very interesting.</p>
<p>NRL - now that I know what you eventually want to do, it may be better for you to apply straight to a PhD program so that you will get funding. On the down side of this you might not be able to get your masters degree if you quit.</p>
<p>hmm well I've thought about a few areas of research.. women and Islam, islamic law, but definitely nothing to do w/ politics. </p>
<p>I doubt it would be easy for me to get into a ph.d program straight away b/c my gpa isn't that high and very few schools offer ph.d in islamic studies or middle east studies. The schools I probably want to go to for a ph.d is UT, Washington, or UCLA if I miraculously get in lol.. I want to go the masters route only b/c I've never been outside of America so I don't know much about the middle east.. plus it will be my time to prove I can do graduate level work.</p>
<p>I emailed the schools I want to go to for my masters about the whole graduating in 6 yrs.. lets see what they say.</p>
<p>Sorry for the double post. Well, I wish you luck in whatever you decide. Perhaps you should check to see if there are any grants available to travel outside the US from your uni. My son has been really lucky to get several grants that allowed him to basically travel to Europe for nothing. Do you have a prof that you can talk to at school? You may not hear from the schools you e-mailed right now because of regular & grad school admissions. They are really overworked at this time of the year!</p>
<p>well, since you're so close to completing the double major, and you insist that it'll take 6 years to complete your BA anyway, may as well take the classes. can i ask what your focus has been (if any) in your history classes? you say your school doesn't offer many middle east classes, but sometimes you don't need that many classes in a specific region as long as you wrote a thesis or graduating essay on it. if your undergrad school offers some sort of thesis/grad essay track, try and do that and write a research paper on the middle east.</p>
<p>while it's true that there aren't a ton of places that offer PhDs in middle eastern studies, consider getting a PhD in middle eastern history. go the modern/20th century track and you'll still be able to research present-day issues. you can skip the MA process (and the debt that comes with doing an MA), get a PhD, and still do all the things you plan to do career-wise.</p>
<p>it's nice that you're able to finish your BA debt-free because your parents footed the bill, but you said they only paid for you to go if you did business and you switched your major without telling them. that means they may not pay for an MA (you'd know better than me, obviously), and you don't want to put yourself into debt in grad school if you can help it. most MA programs offer little to no funding, whereas you can get a full ride with a PhD.</p>
<p>you're already doing a 6-year BA. then you've got 1-2 years at the MA level (depending on the program) and another 4-? years doing your PhD. that's quite a bit of time. if your ultimate goal is to get a doctorate, do your best to bypass the separate MA.</p>
<p>well it's going to take 6 years to finish my BA in history anyways because I have to take a Middle East class and an Arabic class in spring 2010. As for history classes related to my focus, I took one on Modern Middle East and will be taking one on Islamic Empires. I wrote a research paper for an African American history class and to sum up my thesis, it was about Muslim slaves in the Americas and why they weren't able to support an Islamic community in antebellum America. Thanks for the research paper tip and I will most definitely look into it. </p>
<p>I think my parents will pay for an MA... I'm just afraid that if I apply for Ph.D programs straight away I won't get in b/c of my lack of background in the Middle East. Since there are very few programs even on the masters level, they're extremely competitive.. thats what I've been told by people who have pursued the masters or ph.d... plus I would like to figure out what exactly I would like to research when I do my Ph.D and I think the MA will help break it down.. </p>
<p>My plan was to graduate.. do the double major b/c well, I might as well if it's only one more class that I have to take over three weeks. I plan on applying to colleges before I graduate.. I want to start my masters in the fall of 2010.. my university does offer a masters in middle east studies through the history dept.. there are more options on the graduate level in terms of classes. But my university isn't really a top school.. and I kinda want to go to one that's more "up there"... i.e washington or UT or UCLA or something... </p>
<p>BTW, I wasn't looking to do a Ph.D until I get married and settled... I don't like the thought of being poor... no offense to anyone, I'm just very used to a certain lifestyle and don't want to do a Ph.D until I can assure maintenance of that lifestyle.. so probably would do a ph.d in like 7 or 8 yrs.. so a very long term goal lol. Plus, as someone else said, if I end up dropping out of a Ph.D program then I've shot my chances of a Masters.. I would feel more comfortable going the traditional route.</p>
<p>obviously, it's your life (and your parents' money), but it seems like you're thinking about this in a strange way. if money is important to you, a PhD in area studies or history's probably not the best career path for you. you don't make that much money as a professor or researcher. maybe should've stuck with the business major.</p>
<p>and if you drop out of a PhD, but you completed 2-3 years of the program and finished your coursework, they award you a terminal MA. you don't leave completely empty-handed unless you couldn't get through the classes, which in case, you wouldn't have survived a stand-alone MA program anyway.</p>
<p>the "traditional" route is to get a BA in four years and apply directly to the PhD, completing it in 5-7. not everyone goes that way, of course, but that's the norm.</p>
<p>also, if i were you, i'd be less worried about the number of middle eastern classes i have (no one enters a grad program an expert; as long as you've demonstrated that you pursued all the ways to study the middle east with the limited resources your school offered you, you'll be fine) and be more concerned with bringing up my overall GPA. it is borderline and most schools require 3.5 overall just to be competitive.</p>
<p>well i know professors don't make more than $60k a year on avg.. what I meant is I would like to financially secure before I go pursue a ph.d, considering I would not be working while being a ph.d student, and I'm not financially secure yet. I would like to save up money, get married, etc before I pursue a ph.d</p>
<p>another reason I want to do a double major is so I can increase my gpa.. if i continue this trend of a 3.6/3.7 then I am looking at a 3.5ish... so that will also allow me to graduate w/ honors. </p>
<p>so ur saying that I should go ahead and finish up the double major and graduate in august 2010. if i did decide to go the traditional route of going straight for the ph.d, would it be ok to wait a few years before I apply or would that be a negative factor also?</p>
<p>maybe I can get a masters and go for an adjunct position at a CC to get the taste of teaching... its a thought.</p>
<p>You say you "think" your parents will pay for a masters--have you asked them? Do they know which degrees you're pursuing (you said you switched without telling them, but they might know anyway)? You're considered independent by the FAFSA people as soon as you begin a graduate program, and your parents may agree. If you haven't confirmed that you'll be getting a free ride, then getting an MA straight out of college would do the opposite of stabilizing you financially. You'll have to factor $20-30k of debt for tuition alone, which will take at least five years to pay off on $30-40k a year if you live frugally and allot 15% of your income to those debts alone (assuming 8% interest for government loans).</p>
<p>Also, planning to get married and set up house before pursuing your doctorate sounds nice, but I'm not sure you could amass enough wealth with a humanities degree in seven years to carry you through six more of the PhD program. Let's assume you earn $35k a year and have the self-control to put away 20% of it in CDs and saving accounts (very difficult to do if you really want to keep up any sort of lifestyle). You'll have roughly $50k after seven years, assuming a 3% compound interest rate, which will raise your resources during graduate school from an average $20k stipend to a little less than $30k. I don't know what you consider poor, but this is pretty close if you plan to have a car or two, a mortgage (or rent about equal to one), and/or kids on the way...unless you marry rich and your spouse is willing to foot the bill for that half decade.</p>
<p>Sorry for the sudden influx of math. Silas Marner and I have too much in common.</p>
<p>I'm working in the insurance industry and I'll make 6 figures my first year.. I've got the job already and I'm licensed to sell insurance. this job is my means to an end and I really only plan on doing it for maybe for 5 or 6 yrs not more than that. I've noticed the ph.d students in my dept are in their late 20s and early 30s and all of them said they had to save money in order to go to grad school... even the teaching fellows I know said the same thing.</p>
<p>I got a reply from Uni of Washington and the person who emailed me back from their grad office said that length of time to grad doesn't make an impact but what does make an impact is classes taken, how well I did in lower level history courses (3 A's, 1 B), course load, upper level courses that have to do w/ the region I want to study, foreign language proficiency.. etc. My history grades are all in my favor...</p>
<p>thanks for the somewhat positive feedback but I think I will be ok.. and I'll make my parents foot the bill. I don't want to go for the Ph.D without being well prepared.. plus in my ancestral culture, marriage is extremely important and they wouldn't appreciate me getting married when im 30.. I wouldn't like it either lol.. AND if I'm gonna make them foot the bill, then there has to be some sort of compromise.</p>
<p>they don't know I changed my major but I've talked to them about a masters in history and they haven't objected to paying... they'll be happy about me going for my masters.</p>
<p>
[quote]
plus in my ancestral culture, marriage is extremely important and they wouldn't appreciate me getting married when im 30
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Just curious, does this apply to both men and women? I recently read somewhere that the average age for marriage among college graduates is 30, so you would have lots of company.</p>