Rob CainMany colleges and universities are beginning to outlaw double and triple majors. These colleges and universities are worried that students are centering their lives on school work and forgetting about extracurricular activities that embody a healthy college experience.
According to the Chronicle for Higher Education, career experts say that being a triple major will not automatically improve your chances for employment after graduating. Due to these types of possibilities, Massachusetts Institute of Technology has banned triple majors since 2000.
Robert T. Redwine, MIT’s dean of undergraduate education said that time spent pursuing more than one major also comes at the expense of worthwhile extracurricular activities that help define the university’s educational experience.
Sarah Boyer, a double major in special education and elementary education, said, “I still find the time to be able to tutor, participate in school activities and even go to the gym.”
“I have long days and a lot of class work; however I am active in several clubs on campus and help out with a lot of the activities. It is in the same subject area but will allow me to go further in my career,” junior Nina Cohen, an early childhood/elementary education major at Arcadia University, said. “There does seem to be less time for anything else, but it’s all about time management.”
Colleges around the country are reporting a higher number of double majors then years before. Conversely, Cabrini had 29 students graduating with a double major in 2002 and only 28 out of a class of 407 in 2003
However, these added majors may be beneficial to what they want to do after college due to the fact that they relate to each other.
Many times the students are pursuing another major to appease their parents who are not satisfied with the major that the student picked, so another major is added to make the parents happy, even though the work load maybe too much.
However, in Boyer’s case, she said, “I decided to be a double major because I believe it is extremely important that all students who want to be teachers be double certified in special education and elementary education to be able to provide all students with the appropriate education they deserve. Also, inclusion is becoming more popular in schools and therefore I believe all teachers should be equipped with the right tools to teach students with disabilities.”
“I am interested in both journalism and Spanish I would like to combine my two passions some day in some manner, perhaps doing cultural studies in Latin America using my Spanish and then relating that story in a magazine,” Andrew D. Linenberg, a junior journalism and Spanish major at Temple University, said.
Posted on the web by: Rob Cain
