This statistic isn’t surprising, considering that Wellesley is a liberal arts institution that allows and encourages students to explore more than one field. Beyond anecdotal ones. A dual degree is not necessary to get. In order to complete my majors, I had to pick and choose what I felt was most important to explore, and therefore, while my transcript displays depth, it lacks breadth. They don't care about the # of majors. She felt that this was the happy medium between societal and parental expectations and what she really wanted to pursue. In other words, a double major is when you graduate with one degree, but with two or more areas of specialization or disciplines. Howdy! This. All I want to know is if you're capable. It would in many cases depend on what your two majors were in. As USATODAY College Opinions writer Erin Grattan phrased it, “It doesn’t make you cool or intense to double major. But is it worth it? If you have the money to spend to do the extra semester and you really want to do it, sure, why not. But also considering taking a semester to study abroad. My son is delighted with his double science majors. Although it is can be extremely challenging to disregard parental expectations, I think that majoring in something that you’re not passionate about, especially on top of another major, is a recipe for misery in your college years. But that doesn't mean you should ignore the potential edge a well-selected minor can give you. If students have many areas of study that they want to explore, or if they’re really only passionate about one subject, then double majoring might not necessarily be for them. I feel like as long as I have enough internships and a good skill set underneath my belt it doesn’t really matter. A double major may very well give you a competitive edge if you couple it with other career development strategies, but do not erroneously assume that … BUS employers generally don't see a difference. So if you are applying for a graphic designposition, you need to demonstrate your knowledge of specific software, and be able to show samples of your work, regardless if you majored in design or not. two wildly different majors in which case the chances that both are like super relevant to your intended job are very low. The semantics of double degree vs double major vary widely between schools. They don't care how much you can do, but they do care about how well you can do what you put your mind to. Many students do not declare a double major until at least halfway through their college career. There are some edge cases for specialized fields, but your field isn’t one of them. I can’t speak for every employer. Spineless nonpartisanship: how the Girl Scouts convinced me they no longer care about girls, Music Performance Courses Adapt to an Altered Semester, Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of “Rebecca” fails to deliver compared to its classic counterpart, Remote students experience existential crises; change class years in email signatures, Your next on-campus romance isn’t going to work out, Opinion | Do Not Double-Major – by David Leonhardt – NYT | Inconvenient News .Wordpress.com. Taking on a double major reaps the rewards, but sometimes after much inevitable struggle. The main difference is how many pieces of paper you get once you graduate! New research shows double majors beat their peers in one critical way that makes them more attractive to employers. #mc_embed_signup{background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0); clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; } I got my double major in Economics (Sciences) 30 credits and Political Science (if memory serves right) 40 credits, and graduated a full year early with 3.8 overall GPA. (I myself didn't declare my second major until the end of my sophomore year.) Employers don't care, in my experience, and in fact having duel degrees confused most interviewers. That’s not to say that a double major won’t set you apart from the competition, just that the double major vs double degree distinction doesn’t matter. I’m a sophomore double majoring in Comm Sciences and Political Science. I’m set to graduate a semester early which is financially ideal for me since that saves me some tuition money. The details will vary depending on your time in school. It helped me land a job doing the same work as my first career titled job 'statistician' - just now I have the title 'Economist' - so for whatever bullshit reason I get paid more, doing the same exact thing. I wouldn't care a ton about the career options and focus more on whether or not you would actually enjoy or appreciate the classes. However, at the end of my sophomore year, I entered into my second major, English, entirely of my own volition, although I knew that my combined mandatory history and English major requirements amounted to 19 units. Having two won’t ever register on their radar. Overall, I think you should judge on how it would benefit you, not just how it would benefit a potential employer… In some fields, like investment banking and big law firms, employers only hire from top tier schools. "Recruiters and hiring managers literally spend seconds perusing your resume so these skills ne… Even ignoring the supposition that STEM is more useful, I find this argument to be incredibly sad and detrimental to one’s health. If you want a career in AI or ML, just do some ML side projects. It doesn't matter. *Better means more hireable, more well-rounded, and more favourable to potential employers. You will have employers lining up at the doorsteps if done right, but this does not come without putting the work in to get to that point. Perhaps double majors are the kind of students who need more than many programs offer. Furthermore, a lot of your claims sound like a blatant attack to people with triple majors. Nothing much really came from it aside from that, though. Post-Graduate Work. Can't speak directly on your majors, but for Business and related degrees, the answer would be no. Major employers where I live are choosing to hire people with associate's degrees in … I did the double major because I really liked some of my math classes, and wanted to learn more. I have dual degrees (CS and Math). A dual degree isn’t worth a whole other semester. Ultimately, I don't think having two distinct degrees was any major advantage over having a double major while hunting for jobs. Some students also choose to double major simply to increase their level of learning in college. I realized that by the time I graduated, I would have completed a major in English whether I declared it or not. Although she by no means discouraged me from choosing two majors, she did however, caution me against rushing into it without careful planning. So to answer your question, if you can get a double degree, go for it, otherwise don't take the extra classes because it doesn't net you very much professionally in the long run. What’s the difference, really? Spending time at a liberal arts institution has taught me that double majoring is not the best fit for many students who are considering it. It would certainly be helpful to major in education and Spanish, but someone who majors in Education and is fluent in Spanish would certainly be just as worthy of the job. Depending on the field, GPA doesnt even matter much. If money was no object, I would say stay for an extra semester, school is fun, having 2 diplomas is fun. When I first came to Wellesley, I arrived with the notion that double-majoring distinguished the hard working, driven students from the idle ones. Math, 2015 + B.A. I am involved in interviews and looking over resumes sometimes for potential entry level people at my company, we really dont care about second majors (beyond the actual relevant major) or minors, it's really not a relevant factor at the end of the day. New research we conducted recently shows that double majors fare better in another way as well: They are more innovative. Your degrees help you tell a story, and are a tool for explaining what makes you unique as a candidate. According to the University of Maryland, double majoring in math and one other discipline is a great way to prepare for several graduate degree programs, including computer science and actuarial science. Two college majors are better than one. College announces update to vaccination plan, Wellesley in talks to distribute vaccines by April, May; Students raise concerns over plans. However, doing so could have an employer running … Grattan is certainly correct in her statement that employers generally won’t consider a double major an advantage. While I’m now very knowledgeable about both history and English, it won’t be possible for me to supplement that knowledge with anthropology, American studies or art history. "It really does seem to be a great value," she says. Furthermore, a double major is not more impressive than a single major. How to show it off: Your resume needs to highlight skills at first glance, says Salemi. Anyways after finding a career - I found adding the economics major on was invaluable. At the end of my first year, I realized that the approximately 23 classes it would take to complete both an international relations-political science degree and a history degree were more than I was willing to sacrifice, so I firmly abandoned the former and happily accepted my single-major status. Prior research has already shown that students who double major can earn more than peers who majored in only one field. Wellesley, why can’t you meet our dietary needs? Neither major helped me at all land in field thanks to the toilet bowl recession of 2008, so I got more student debt in graduate school and suddenly all the employers were interested. People tend to overweight certification in my opinion. I have dual degrees in Math (with a CS minor) and in Philosophy and went into academia as a full time university math instructor after some confused bumbling around job applications in industry. Even though it was my goal to explore fields like psychology and theater, they were always going fall through in favor of taking more English and history courses. They will likely take a single econ major with 3.9 over a triple major with a slightly lower GPA. I can tell you that many electronic applications don't even consider the possibility that someone has more than one undegraduate degree. . Although it is true that some employers are relunctant from hiring students with triple or quadruple majors, there is still a handfull of companies that would kill to have someone master three different disciplines related to their project. */. I'd graduate early if I was you, miss the competition of the larger amount of graduates that finish in the spring, and enjoy your couple grand in savings. I realize that PSCI and COMM are pretty closely related, but with the track I was going to be taking in PSCI I realized that some of the classes might not benefit me in the future, and I found a way for some of my COMM classes to double count for PSCI so that way any of the classes I would've taken as electives in the future can count as a double major. Unless you're taking on more debt with dual degrees - I'd see no difference as a hiring manager if someone had dual degrees or double majors. Nope. Although the passing of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the age 26 mandate has eased the stress of finding health insurance for both adult children and their parents, there are still a number of questions parents are asking their employers about the mandate. A couple of years ago, The New York Times explored why students consider a double major. While I was a little concerned that I wouldn’t be able to explore every academic field I had wanted to, I knew that before every registration period, when I looked at the offerings on the course browser, the classes that I wanted to take most were in English and history. If you could finish the credits this semester sure. Nobody cares. A double major if well selected will increase the range of jobs for which you are qualified and may make you a stronger candidate as well, by knowing more about more things. On resumes you still say you majored in both. Your email address will not be published. That's bad advice. I don’t think it’s going to give me some sort of “secret edge.” I just have two specific areas of study that I really want to focus on. Don't even go for a double major. Companies may want to entice interns with the promise of a paying job at the end of the internship. Most, if not all, wouldn't even know the difference. I decided on double majoring because I find it personally rewarding and I want to learn more about COMM. The rest is having at least one major that is relevant and a GPA that shows you took it seriously. Your email address will not be published. He’s a 21-year-old senior at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond – a computer science and economics double major with a B average. For instance, you could earn a Bachelor of Arts degree with double majors in Marketing and Spanish with the goal of pursuing a career in international business. Effort vs. Benefits It's more work to do a double major or a minor. Enjoy yourself now because, unless you become independently wealthy, you won't have another chance to spend 4 months experiencing the world relatively worry-free until you retire. So for my resume, would I just list it like this? I would often get "you mean you double majored?" Political Science, Communication Sciences and Social Inquiry. But that doesn't mean you should ignore the potential edge a … However, double majoring ultimately prevents students from exploring many different disciplines. Most of my friends were pretty taken aback when, two weeks after declaring my second major, I advised a first-year against a similar course of action. After that, the only people who will care are HR Reps who need to check the “has a bachelors degree” box. While double majors have been a popular way to balance a deep study of the humanities with traditional degrees in the sciences, basic tabulations suggest that the percent of workers with a double major has been roughly constant, or even decreasing, over the past six years depending on how one restricts the sample.For example, looking at all individuals between ages 20 and 29, only 12.5 percent of the population had a double m… When I told my history major advisor that I was planning to double major, I was a little surprised when she assured me that it wasn’t necessary. Sure, it costs money, but its well worth it. Though, it does allow (a) two different sets of jobs that can be readily applied for, and (b), (perhaps more pertinent,) later in your career you might find jumping career paths is facilitated by the 2nd major. Double majoring also opens the doors to greater opportunities for extending your education after your bachelor's degree. Companies like … As a result, the job market has become much more competitive for college grads. Being able to say you double majored? Nobody cares.”. Yes, if someone is considering entering the field of bioinformatics, majoring in computer science and biology won’t hurt their chances, but someone who has majored in one and has background in the other could be equally eligible. So, while the results of the QS Global Employer Survey 2016 can help students make informed decisions, those looking to follow their heart shouldn’t be dissuaded from doing so. Also, I do interviews for my company, and I wouldn't care. A Minor's Major Benefits Most employers will tell you that your college major is more important than your minor, and many employers will stress that hands-on experience gained during college is the most critical hiring variable of all. Would it make more sense to stay an extra semester (basically graduate on time) with two separate degrees or just graduate early with a double major? Double major for me helped me get a promotion a lot faster, and didn't delay graduation or cost me more when I was in school. Choosing double majors depends on what you want to do later, your learning style & the difficulty level of the selected programs. Either you are taking two very closely related majors, in which case it's a wash because either one of them probably would have been serviceable for an entry level position in the same industry anyway, or you take two wildly different majors in which case the chances that both are like super relevant to your intended job are very low. If you have internships then most other things are a wash. Tbh, there are really two types of double majoring. In a recent organization meeting, someone told me that she was double majoring in something “useful,” or STEM related, and then something that she really enjoyed in the humanities. Now, as a junior, I look back on my first-year opinion with chagrin and amusement. and just kind of broaden my career horizons. One of my friends recently graduated as the same double major, and is making 85K out of school with a bachelor, but on the other hand, people tell me that employers really care about the level of education, not what/how many bachelors you have. If it had taken any longer, I wouldn’t have done it. “Grattan is certainly correct in her statement that employers generally won’t consider a double major an advantage.”. Nobody cares. In hindsight, I’m glad that she made me consider the impact of a double major because doing so helped me realize the potential downsides. Job-search site Glassdoor compiled a list of top employers who are expanding their talent options by no longer requiring applicants to have a college degree. Yes, your school matters, at least in the beginning of your career. /* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. If you enjoy and feel you will benefit from two areas of study equally, consider majoring in one, and then just taking some of the courses in the other. You have any evidence for that claim? If it’s just for the supposed competitive edge when it comes to job applications, it might not be necessary, and you will miss out on a host of other relevant and fascinating skills and departments when you confine yourself to two areas of study. It matters so little once you get the job. Double bachelor degrees are a great choice for those who learn very quickly and are organized. Don't dual degree because you think two pieces of paper will be more advantageous than a piece of paper with a sticky note; dual degree because you find it personally rewarding to do so. What employers care about is what you can produce. To stand out from their peers, some students will double major, hoping future employers will take notice. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Pro Tip: If you love the idea of studying two subjects but find the prospect of a double major overwhelming, consider doing a minor instead. A degree or certificate may tell an employer about your education, but it won't necessarily highlight your specific skills. The right degree, within any discipline, develops opportunity, knowledge and potential. Do employers even really care whether you have a dual degree or a double major? 06-13-2010 at 3:27 pm That's good to hear. I did dual degree because I took 150 credit hours in 4 years for my double major. As long as you have both majors you are good to go. Required fields are marked *. As a double major, I don’t think that double majoring is going to widen my career prospects. It depends on what your degree is in and where you are located. Employers won’t care about a double major, he insisted. In fact, he told the students, even their spouses won’t care care about a double major. You just will only get one degree to hang with both majors on it vs two degrees to hang. But overall, I'd agree that it's a very small difference from an employer's point of view -- after your first job, your college background becomes less important than your contacts & recommendations. Philosophy, 2015, Alumnus. The independent student newspaper of Wellesley College since 1901. Also, your degree and GPA pretty much only matter for your very first job out of college. Even so, I personally enjoyed investing the additional credit hours into the second degree. But other wise it looks the same as a double major to employers. If money was no object, I would say stay for an extra semester, school is … Basically just 2 diplomas instead of 1. That's what I figured, I just didn't want to waste money on getting a dual degree if it didn't really matter. Most employers will tell you that your college major is more important than your minor, and many employers will stress that hands-on experience gained during college is the most critical hiring variable of all. Grattan is certainly correct in her statement that employers generally won’t consider a double major an advantage. Having a degree at all is 80% of it. I didn't realize these are two different things? If you have student loans, graduate ASAP. In a 2015 article on Wellesley’s Website, the college confirmed that about a quarter of Wellesley students double major, which is roughly twice the national average. Long story short - it helps to have a diverse field of experience so you can 'qualify' for more jobs. . Requires more credit hours for a dual degree. That is the conclusion that researchers are beginning to reach. A Minor's Major Benefits. I can also tell you that nearly everyone I met with (let alone everyone who interviewed me) asked about how I managed to make time for degrees in what seemed to be two entirely disparate fields, allowing me to describe my fun with time management. Your employer shouldn’t care whether you double majored or did dual degrees as you will have the same experience either way. It probably wasn’t even worth it to cram that many classes into 4 years. "Serious concentration in a secondary area can be extremely marketable, and employers are looking for that," says Kathy Sims, director of the UCLA Career Center. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. Another position that exemplifies this notion is teaching English as a Second Language (ESL). I urge all students who are considering double majoring to really consider the consequences of doing so and to fully explore why exactly it is that they want to double major. Mmmm… asking about “employers” as a class is sort of like asking about “women” as a class, and likely to lead to generalizations that aren’t accurate. How much it matters depends on your field and your specific employer. Most employers don't know the difference between dual degree and double major, much less use it as hiring criteria. It could be a signal of proactive and creative choice for … Helpful advice! . : B.A. I also know a guy who did history + agricultural science which he was very happy with. I thought that with my intended double major in international relations-political science and history, I was really going to make the most of my time at college. Colleges may have to adapt to that reality to help their graduates compete. I would often get "you mean you double majored?" The only difference like you mentioned is that you won’t get 2 separate degrees. Also, I do interviews for my company, and I wouldn't care. Sometimes I doubt my employers even read my resume. Yes, if someone is considering entering the field of bioinformatics, majoring in computer science and biology won’t hurt their chances, but someone who has majored in one and has background in the other could be equally eligible. Here are some tips to help with managing a double major, a task that may, at times, seem somewhat unmanageable: Why employers care: Quite simply, employers need to know you're skilled (or at least have relevant skills) for the job you're pursuing. Just get your foot in the door with companies and you are golden. Employers don't care, in my experience, and in fact having duel degrees confused most interviewers. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, More posts from the VirginiaTech community, Press J to jump to the feed. I originally came in as a PSCI major but wanted to add Comm so I could learn some specific skills (Adobe Creative Suite, writing in AP style, etc.) While graduating with a double major can look impressive on your resume and potentially score you a better paying gig, it can also be a financial burden. Our jobseeker is Mourya Abbareddy. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, B.S.