Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Generally speaking, aside from the condensed double-major pairings that universities list, can you earn one just by making it a point to fulfill the requirements for two fields?
Usually. You should look at your schools catalog/bulletin for specific requirements. At least that's how it worked for my undergrad program. You had to get all of the gen ed or "University Studies" classes out of the way and then whatever your major requirements were for each program, typically ~50 credits for each. I chose to do my second major as a second bachelor's rather than a double major so that I would have the degree posted on my transcripts by the time I started applying to grad school.
Last edited by figmalt; 08-29-2010 at 04:38 PM..
Reason: clarity
Yes. I chose to double major within the same school (business), so I just spoke to my adviser and we mapped out the courses that could overlap for each to lighten the load. It ended up only being 3-4 extra classes. It took away a lot of the freedom from each major (e.g. for major A I needed to take class 1, 2, or 3. For major B I needed 3, 4, or 5. I chose to take "3" so that I could get out faster, even if "1" and "4" were more interesting).
I played around for a while with majoring in something from humanities along with business. Some of the general ed classes could have still overlapped (what was required for business was an elective from humanities, and vice versa), but I would have needed to make the decision very early on in my studies to prevent having to do an extra semester or year, so that I could maximize that overlap.
For some majors you have to be accepted into it with a certain GPA in that major's classes and have approval of the department head. Of course, the best person to ask is your adviser.
Generally speaking, aside from the condensed double-major pairings that universities list, can you earn one just by making it a point to fulfill the requirements for two fields?
By 'earn one', do you mean earn one double major? One thing about college is that you can pretty much take whatever courses you want as long as you meet any required pre-req's or the course is not locked to a specific major.
So yes, in that regard it could be possible, however, I am fairly confident that you would need to formally declare your intensions (double major) or else the university may just treat the other courses as something you took for your own enlightenment. I have never heard of a situation where someone was awarded a degree for an undeclared course of study simply because they met the requirements for that degree. Perhaps it does happen, I dunno.
By 'earn one', do you mean earn one double major? One thing about college is that you can pretty much take whatever courses you want as long as you meet any required pre-req's or the course is not locked to a specific major.
So yes, in that regard it could be possible, however, I am fairly confident that you would need to formally declare your intensions (double major) or else the university may just treat the other courses as something you took for your own enlightenment. I have never heard of a situation where someone was awarded a degree for an undeclared course of study simply because they met the requirements for that degree. Perhaps it does happen, I dunno.
Oh yes, this is definitely true. Generally though, you can't get into the capstone/upper div classes for the major unless you've declared the major anyway (at least in my experience). Many majors have required senior projects or theses as well (which may or may not be tied to a course), so you'd need to be sure to complete the extra requirements.
You'll get the definitative answer from your school, but I know of students who have double majored in fairly unrelated areas. Vocal performance and Journalism; Classical Studies and pre-Dentistry; Vocal Performance and pre-Optometry.
Yes, definitely talk to your advisor. Better yet, also talk to the advisors within each individual major (which you'll need to do anyway if you want a major from that department), but I realized that I'd already taken so many of the classes and had fulfilled most of the requirements. I also picked up a minor that way. In my case, I was allowed to double-count some classes towards each major. You may or may not have to do a senior thesis or project in both majors.
In any case, you will need to formally declare both majors.
You really need to follow the advise of many of the other posters and talk to an advisor from each department. It really just depends of the university you are attending, too. Some universities will let you do double majors in all kinds of things, and some do not encourage double majors, or will only allow you to minor in certain things. I know DS1 has had some trouble in that area. He was thinking about changing his major, and just minoring in his current major, but then he found out minors aren't allowed in that particular area of study. His university really discourages double majors and minors.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
