Reply to Why Triple Major?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Why Triple Major?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's not 3 separate degrees. It's usually closely related fields, and the additional majors are only about 7 courses each, and courses can be double counted for 2 majors. (3 NU quarter courses equals 2 semesters elsewhere.)

[/quote]

+1. I have a kid who is an IR and Russian double major.  But her college has a limit on cross-counting in getting double majors (max of 2 classes) and both majors have a lot of pre-recs, so just two is a heavy lift.  Allow all cross counts and add about two extra classes and she could easily add history or politics. Heck— add in a more liberal AP policy (very little AP credit given at her school and none for core credits or majors, just elective credit for APs) and if she sat down and looked at cross counts and how her sibling’s college counts APs, I bet the triple major is there.  Add a summer study abroad and she could probably IR, Russian, politics, and history quad major.  And on one hand— sure cool flex. On the other, a bunch on AP credit and cross counts don’t add anything to the double major.

I was all over the place in college and had the credits to double major with three minors. But only got to declare the majors. Doesn’t really matter. I use the classes that were useful, whether I declared that third minor or not.

Point is, either you spend five or six years in college or your triple major counts credits in such a manner that you aren’t doing more work than a double major.  You probably are superspecializing to get the overlap, especially if all departments have a senior capstone requirement.  And that has pluses and minuses. Great for a kid with a tailored interest who knows early on exactly where they are going and has a plan freshman year to make it work. Bad because breadth has value. And if the third minor is available, some kids will feel pressure to go for it and super specialize when they aren’t sure or ready to commit.

Now, you find me an English, Biology and Music triple major (or any three majors in very different fields with no overlap)  at a well regarded school who hasn’t transferred half their classes in as APs or summer community college credits andhasnt spent 6 years finding themselves and I’m impressed.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics