Electives

ylrebmik

Full Member
10+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Jul 3, 2007
Messages
314
Reaction score
0
My brother is a senior in college right now and we were talking earlier and he told me that I should figure out my majors asap otherwise I won't graduate in time probably. That part I understood. But then he said that I wouldn't have time to take any electives that don't really relate to my majors.. true?

Did you double major/ minor? Major / minor? Double major/ Double minor? or Major / double minor? Or w/e the case was. haha

Were you able to take classes not directly related to your major... besides general ed?

Is 15-18 a good credit load?

Thanks!
 
Don't worry about figuring out your major just yet. You don't have to declare until the end of your sophomore year (usually), and besides that, about 70% of students come in "Undecided", and out of the 30% that come in with a major selected, 80% will change their major at least once during their four years. The only way you'll have trouble graduating in time is if a) you switch from, like, a bio major to a violin major in your junior year, or b) you go to a large university where you get locked out of 101 classes and get behind a year in required classes.

You will absolutely be able to take classes unrelated to your major. How many will depend on your school. Usually, your freshman year has a lot of core classes (Eng 101, Psych 101, Math 101) and you only have room for a few electives. On the other hand, the core classes will give you a broad sampling of a lot of different fields, so you're sort of knocking out two birds with one stone. As you move up in the system, you'll be able to take more electives and get a feel for what you like and what you don't. At other schools, like Brown, there are no core classes at all, so everything you take is essentially an elective. Pretty cool, eh?

18 is usually the maximum number of credits a school will allow you to take before they start charging you more money. 15 is considered a full schedule, but it can vary by school--and don't forget to take into account for subject matter. If you're taking a touch class, lighten your load so that you can allow for more study time for that class.

Don't panic! Take the time to enjoy all the flavors available before picking your favorite.
 
Well I don't want to decide on a major until I get to college and start taking classes and know for sure but the programs I'm interested in are quite varied with courses... and I don't want to "get screwed" as my brother puts it.
 
Are you going to a school with a core curriculum?

If you are, then it could really matter less what your major is for the first two years. You'll be so busy filling your graduation requirements that electives are on the backburner. Your junior and senior year is when you really start taking classes towards your major, and hopefully by then, you'll have a good idea of what you're majoring in.

If you're going to a school without a core curriculum, then you really have nothing to worry about. With no classes that are required for graduation, you can take one semester with courses towards one major and then another semester with courses towards another major, and then pick which one you liked better at the end of the year. Having no core curriculum allows you to do things, like double majoring, very easily. Switching majors is even easier.

Either way, methinks that your brother might have gotten himself into or has seen a unique situation, because cases where the student takes nothing but classes towards his/her major are pretty rare. Or he could just be trying to scare you, if he's mean like that.
 
I double majored in biology and religious studies and minored in history in four years by doing both semesters of physics during the summer after sophomore year and I had no AP credits/college credits coming in, as I took lots of AP classes, just didn't take any of the exams. I was originally going to major in bio and double minor in history and RS, but I figured out a way to just take a few senior level classes and one intro level class my senior year (taking Major World Religions second semester senior year of my major with the freshmen when I knew more than the TA because she was doing her masters on something different as pretty entertaining) to get the double major without too awful much extra work. I was glad I did and quite a few of my fellow RS majors had double/dual majors in psych, sociology, political science, journalism, etc.

At least at my school, double majoring is easier than dual majoring because double majoring means you get both degrees from the same "college" (i.e.-college of business, arts & science, journalism, etc). So if you wanted to double major in chemistry and psychology, that's usually not too hard because they both have the same base general education class. But if you want to dual major, like in business and journalism if you were interested in something like advertising, that would be a little harder.

If you really are interested in a lot of things and just couldn't decide, an interdisciplinary studies major is not uncommon. They are basically like having 3 minors. These aren't bad for professional school and they're kinda cool because they can be three pretty unrelated things and your DVM/MD/DO/DDS, etc is more important than the bachelors, so once you get out of vet med/med/dental/whatever school, it doesn't matter. But if you don't get into professional school and decide to do something different, it can be hard to explain to an employer what that entailed versus a specific major.

Hope that helps. 😀
 
I'm graduating in the spring, and I will have taken no non-required classes (~126-128 credits). How many (if any) pure non-required electives you take depends on on 1. You school and 2. your major. I have a friend who's a psych major at my college, who got a russian minor because he needed to build up to 120 credits. I have another friend who's an engineer who has more credits than me, and also 0 non-required classes. So really the only answer is: it depends.

To graduate "on time" you should probably have a major decided by the end of you freshman year, but you do have time to make the decision if you don't know.
 
I double majored in biology and religious studies and minored in history in four years by doing both semesters of physics during the summer after sophomore year and I had no AP credits/college credits coming in, as I took lots of AP classes, just didn't take any of the exams. I was originally going to major in bio and double minor in history and RS, but I figured out a way to just take a few senior level classes and one intro level class my senior year (taking Major World Religions second semester senior year of my major with the freshmen when I knew more than the TA because she was doing her masters on something different as pretty entertaining) to get the double major without too awful much extra work. I was glad I did and quite a few of my fellow RS majors had double/dual majors in psych, sociology, political science, journalism, etc.

At least at my school, double majoring is easier than dual majoring because double majoring means you get both degrees from the same "college" (i.e.-college of business, arts & science, journalism, etc). So if you wanted to double major in chemistry and psychology, that's usually not too hard because they both have the same base general education class. But if you want to dual major, like in business and journalism if you were interested in something like advertising, that would be a little harder.

If you really are interested in a lot of things and just couldn't decide, an interdisciplinary studies major is not uncommon. They are basically like having 3 minors. These aren't bad for professional school and they're kinda cool because they can be three pretty unrelated things and your DVM/MD/DO/DDS, etc is more important than the bachelors, so once you get out of vet med/med/dental/whatever school, it doesn't matter. But if you don't get into professional school and decide to do something different, it can be hard to explain to an employer what that entailed versus a specific major.

Hope that helps. 😀

😱 That's so weird. I want to major in biology and religious studies and minor in history and/or english. And you were going for zoo medicine... like me right now. Sorta cool but creepy haha.


Thanks for the responses.
 
Top