Which undergraduate path is my best option?

Parent Cafe
41

<p>I am in the do-not-double-major camp, unless your reason is this: you absolutely love both majors and cannot really decide between the two.</p>

<p>I say this as someone who double majored in chemistry and English, back in the dark ages. I did it because I honestly loved both majors, was good in both areas, and absolutely could not decide between the two. I applied to grad schools in both chemistry and English before choosing the former, and even then the choice was based solely on career prospects.</p>

<p>If the OP loves creative writing - then write. All the degrees in the world do not make you a better novelist or writer; experience and practice do.</p>

42

<p>But, oldfort, why, exactly, does your daughter want to double-major? Either Philosophy or Economics works fine for law school OR for finance (assuming in the latter case that she has taken enough math and econ to pass whatever hurdle they have, but I know it doesn’t require a major). There really isn’t anything she might want to do with one major that she couldn’t do with the other major and some significant course work, short of a major, in the non-major field, and that includes PhD studies.</p>

<p>Philosophy and Economics aren’t so similar that there is going to be significant overlap between the two areas, so double majoring has a real opportunity cost in terms of non-major electives she can take. And, on the other hand, Philosophy and Economics aren’t so different, so she will lose something in the diversity of her college courses by taking so many in those two areas.</p>

<p>So what exactly is the rationale for double-majoring? If she were going to Harvard or Princeton – two pretty respectable institutions – she wouldn’t even be able to consider doing that. Do you think their students are being poorly educated?</p>

<p>scout59: I happen to think there is educational value in choosing, since that’s what we wind up doing the rest of our lives. Not definitively choosing one over the other for a lifetime when you are 19, but choosing which one to major in and which one to pursue but not to major in. Anyway, my spouse double-majored, but it was for the opposite reason of yours: She was two courses shy of completing one major when she decided she hated it, and the other major almost perfectly reflected her new set of interests. The only distortion in her curriculum was taking one extra course in the old major, and writing a senior essay in that major, but she decided it would be worth doing for whatever reason. For years and years, neither major had much if anything to do with her career, except that over the past decade the first, almost-abandoned major has proved relevant.</p>

43

<p>I won’t address the law school aspect of it because I am in the dark when it comes to it. I get all my info from my sister and her H. </p>

<p>On the finance side, I know many people have said IB will recruit English, psychology…majors, and D1 have met some of them in her analyst class. But they are clearly at a disadvantage due to lack of math, over all economic theories, finance. Some may have taken one or two courses here and there, but most of them are entry level courses. When I first started out, it was a lot simpler, training classes have become a lot more difficult due to all the new derivatives and regulations. D1 did say quite a few people were let go when they couldn’t pass their weekly tests. Yes, some of them were Harvard and Princeton graduates. D2 will need more than econ/finance/accounting 101 if she wants to go into banking. She will have enough APs to fulfill many course requirements that she will be able to take additional econ courses. If she was to go to a school like Princeton or Harvard, she probably would take similar courses, but would only get one major because of school’s policy. I don’t see what’s the problem.</p>

44

<p>

</p>

<p>Life doesn’t revolve around what people do at Harvard or Princeton. They aren’t the markers of the world for students who aren’t at those schools. A student who is contemplating double majoring isn’t saying “students who don’t double major are being poorly educated” or “institutions that don’t offer double majors are inferior to my own.” The whole comparison is nonsensical. </p>

<p>As to rationale for double-majoring - well, let’s see. My son is likely going to be a political science major at NU. Ok, great; here he is at a place that also offers superb economics, H and I have both said - if it so interests you, you might want to consider a double major in poli sci and econ; it may get you a lot farther than just a poli sci major. Why is that bad advice? He doesn’t have to take it, but if he’s going to bother to take a bunch of econ courses, why not think about it?</p>

<p>I was a double major in an honors program that required a social science major be taken along with the mathematical methods major. [Core</a> Curriculum, Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences – Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University](<a href=“http://www.mmss.northwestern.edu/program/program-overview.html]Core”>http://www.mmss.northwestern.edu/program/program-overview.html)<br>
Yes, it did take up a lot of time to have 2 majors, but frankly being on the quarter system I was advantaged, as I had 12 courses a year to play with instead of the traditional 8. </p>

<p>It also strikes me as odd that you are decrying how extra majors / minors “fill up” time that could otherwise be spent exploring new fields, at the same time you are such a fan of U Chicago, which, if my understanding is right, has very specific core courses required of everyone (as opposed to just general distribution requirements which leave more flexibility in how you want to fulfill a distribution area).</p>

45

<p>Incidentally, the only “double-majoring” ever came up as an issue other than a candidate who was obviously doing it as a resume-building exercise and not because of any genuine academic interest/passion is vague interdisciplinary/extremely unfocused graduate degrees. </p>

<p>The latter really throws most hiring managers IME because as far as they were concerned, undergrad was for broadening your horizons with some focus on your major/minor fields…without being excessively narrow. </p>

<p>However, continuing this in a grad program would be considered a sign a given student lacked focus…especially considering most of them felt grad school was when you’re really supposed to focus on one narrow specialization within a given field.</p>

46

<p>How do you tell whether a candidate “did something as a resume-building exercise” versus because of a “genuine academic interest/passion”? Answer: You can’t. Maybe you could just take people at face value, there’s a concept.</p>

<p>And I completely disagree that “most hiring managers” think “undergrad is for broadening your horizons with some focus on your major/minor fields.” Come on now. The vast majority of hiring managers aren’t going to have a “philosophy” on single major vs double major - they’ll just note what’s there and move on to how you present yourself in an interview, which trumps any constellation of majors.</p>

47

<p>I have never ever heard the word wifty in my life until now. Is it a neighborhood thing? Or generational?</p>

<p>Signed,
born and raised and still here Philadelphian</p>

48

<p>P-Girl: I am a big fan of the University of Chicago, no question, but I am pretty ambivalent about its Core Curriculum. There’s no question, thought, that the Core does a decent job of exposing kids to a lot of new stuff, especially in areas they are less likely to have encountered in high school. So it doesn’t have the effect of a double major, cutting kids off from experimentation.</p>

<p>By the way, another thing I feel ambivalent about at Chicago is how popular double majoring is there – about 25% of the students do that. There’s an awful lot of Math (or Statistics) and Something Mathy or Chemistry and Some Kind Of Biology double majors, since that’s especially easy to do, as well as Economics and What I Really Wanted To Major In double majors.</p>

49

<p>

Are these statements inconsistent or am I missing something?</p>

50

<p>I would like to thank Terenc for pointing out the double major requirements; I was not aware that more than half of the courses I took for each major had to be exclusive to that major. It looks like I will be pursuing option C - the B.S. in Computer Science and minor in creative writing. Thank you all who contributed your opinions.</p>

51

<p>noimagination: Those two statements aren’t inconsistent at all. I said there was educational value in choosing, because most of adult life consists of making choices. One wants to do 50 things, but usually one can only do a few of them. People have to learn to say, “To do this well, I am going to have to concentrate on this now.” Something like choosing a major is a first step in learning that process.</p>

<p>I was NOT suggesting that choosing your major is the same as choosing what you will do for the rest of your life. In fact, I pretty plainly said the opposite. Your major isn’t your destiny. It’s just what you are going to concentrate (somewhat) on now.</p>

52

<p>JHS - we all have to make choices in life, but I don’t understand why you think by having more than one major is necessary going to push someone over the edge. When my kids were in high school, they took high level science, math, humanities courses, AND danced 20+ hours a week, which was equivalent to another major. </p>

<p>In real life, I have a full time job, i am a wife and a very involed parent. I’ve had to give up a bit on my career and motherhood, but I haven’t had to choose one over another, and I feel like I have done a damn good job as an employee, wife, and a mother. I have never felt like it had to be one or the other. If my kids, by double majoring, couldn’t take a full suite of courses in one major, so what!</p>

<p>I guess what you want to teach your kid is to choose one or the other. What I am teaching my girls is it doesn’t have to be one or the other, there could be a balance.</p>

53

<p>There is nothing inherently wrong with double majoring.</p>

<p>However, when people feel they need to double major with the expectation of maximizing their chances of doing X goal, then double majoring, with the exception of a liberal arts student who doubles in a more rigorous major like engineering/math, is counter-productive.</p>

<p>When you double major only or mostly because you believe it boosts your resume, there is the implication that if you believed it didn’t, you would have instead just taken a wide breadth of elective classes or more depth in your major, which are options that are more enjoyable or more useful, respectively.</p>

<p>In my opinion, getting a double in this particular case is, paradoxically, counter-productive to finding a “balance.” </p>

<p>For example, I am an engineering major. In the past, I had considered (and decided against) a major in business. However, if I double major, virtually all my classes would be in engineering and in business, leaving maybe 3-4 classes to fulfill university-imposed breadth requirements. Instead, what I’m doing / planning on doing is majoring in engineering, and then taking clusters of 2-4 related courses in business/econ, creative writing, philosophy, psychology, physics, etc. This is true balance.</p>

<p>This has, in my opinion the best of both worlds: you get to select the most interesting classes (to you), get exposed to more varied ideas than you would have if you had double majored (this is the whole point behind breadth), and don’t have to suffer through boring classes that might have been required in a major.</p>

<p>The only situation this does not apply is when you only need to take 3-4 additional classes to get a double major. However, to my knowledge many university policies prohibit this.</p>

54

<p>Engineering majors have a longer list of requirements than other majors, that is why I am not a fan of engineering major unless it is someone’s passion. You can’t afford to double major in engineering, so it is a moot point.</p>

55

<p>The best of both worlds for some is one major and a wide range of electives all over the board. For others, it’s a circumscribed core curriculum. For others, it’s double majoring in 2 fields of interest. Why are we assigning different virtue levels to individual preferences? Saying “I want to major in chemistry and French lit” isn’t morally inferior to majoring solely in chem or solely in French lit.</p>

56

<p>And the world is not so black-and-white, either. I still stand by the reasoning of my 20-year-old self and my decision to double major in two things I really loved (and was really good in, too.) I don’t think I short-changed my education at all, and I know I didn’t short-change any prospective employer with any falsely-perceived lack of depth of knowledge. Why would a chemistry major alone have been superior to my double major? I can’t tell you how many supervisors told me, “A chemist with an English degree? I have a paper you can help me with.” (And then there were all those colleagues who used me as the final arbiter of opinion on the correct usage of “effect” versus “affect”…)</p>

<p>And to those who think that the major doesn’t really matter once you’ve been in the work force - again, the world isn’t so black and white. After 20+ years in my chemistry career, I’m now working in an English-major-related job that I would not have qualified for, had I not had that major in English. It did not matter that I had tons of experience in hands-on science and loads of writing experience; my current employer still needed to see that English BA.</p>

<p>I still think - if you love both fields, go ahead and double major. If you’re just doing it only because you think it makes you look smarter or more employable…maybe not so much.</p>

57

<p>

</p>

<p>I think we need to differentiate here between double-majoring in something you actually explicitly don’t like and wouldn’t otherwise choose, and double-majoring in something that you do have an interest in. In which case - taking a second major in something you actually explicitly don’t like but feel you “should” isn’t any worse than taking the first major in something you actually don’t like but feel you should. And there are plenty of THOSE threads in CC – “my parents want me to be a doctor / engineer / blah blah blah.” </p>

<p>As for the “resume-boosting” - sure, I do feel that in the example given, my S should consider taking a second major in economics to augment a political science major, given his specific goals. Up to him in the final analysis, of course, and not at all pushed by parents - merely suggested. Why is that “wrong” to do so? Why is choosing to add another major that you think might help you reach your goals any different from choosing a particular internship because it might advance your goals? I don’t see the moral distinction being made here. Since when is reaching goals a bad thing?</p>

58

<p>

I have never, in my life, seen a sentence like that one. There’s an employer somewhere who is REQUIRING an English major? I take back everything I said before.</p>

<p>(Otherwise, I would have said that terenc expressed perfectly what I think.)</p>

59

<p>

</p>

<p>It seems you missed that the ones I’ve known and heard about wouldn’t give two figs about whether someone did a double-major or not…unless it comes out in the interview that the person did the double-major mostly/solely for resume building reasons. </p>

<p>They’d suss this out when candidate does the following:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Cannot give coherent explanation as to what led them to double-major in the fields chosen and why.</p></li>
<li><p>Lack of much/any demonstrated passion/interest when interviewer discusses their major(s). Every hiring manager whom I later worked for has said my reactions to his/her questions about what led to my major and why was a key factor in my being hired as my passion/interest clearly came through…in contrast to many other candidates he/she interviewed. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>Moreover, I’ve yet to find anyone in corporate America who’d take a candidate’s word at face value. If so, why the extensive third-party background checks…especially those practiced by financial/biglaw firms?</p>

60

<p>

</p>

<p>Yep. All true. Current job required an undergraduate degree in English or journalism plus blah blah blah. According to the hiring manager who phoned me for the interview, they set aside CVs pf those who did not meet this requirement. Apparently, they still had plenty to choose from, given the job prospects of a lot of English majors!</p>