Rob CainThink back to freshmen orientation when that purple book circulated its way around the Widener Lecture Hall. Each student took one of the catalogs and became wide eyed as they realized what was going to be expected of them over the next four years. Not only does each student have to fulfill the requirement courses for their major, but also core requirements and electives. This comes to a grand total of 123 credits, at the least.
Some people, though, are not fazed by these expectations. They see Cabrini’s requirements and raise them a major. Double major students not only have to complete core courses and electives, but also fulfill the requirements for two separate majors.
Anthony Yuschak is a sophomore double majoring in religious studies and history. His goal is to be a religion teacher after graduation. He decided to declare himself a double major this year. Even though religion is his main interest, he also wants something more concrete to fall back on. If things ever do not go as planned for Yuschak in the religion field, he can always fall back on his major in history and become a history teacher. “Being a double major is not at all harder than just having one major,” Yuschak said.
Junior Stef Ciarrochi feels differently. Ciarrochi will graduate with a double certification in special education and elementary education; this is very similar to a double major. Ciarrochi would like to set straight the false opinion that education majors do not have to do a lot of work.
Although education majors may not have work that is a strenuous as a biology major, they dedicate the same amount of time and effort. Not only does she have to fulfill the requirements for both her majors and the core, but she also has to complete field experience every Wednesday for five semesters, study for the Praxis exams and do all this without letting her GPA slip below a 3.0.
Her goal is to teach special education at the high school level. If she ever decides that she cannot handle special education, she can fall back on her elementary education degree. She feels that the two go hand-in-hand because whether she is teaching in an elementary classroom or a special education classroom in a high school, she will be teaching on the elementary level. Ciarrochi is currently taking 16.5 credits but plans on taking 18 credits for the next three semesters to fulfill all of her requirements.
Joshua Taggart, a senior accounting and philosophy major, takes a different approach to his double major. He is content with the heavier workload of his double major if it means that he will be “an educated person.”
Taggart did not choose these two majors with a concrete plan in mind, even with graduation quickly approaching, he is content not knowing his career path. He is interested in a variety of things and feels that he has a lot of options.
One option that he is considering is teaching English in Asia. He realizes that what is important to society is that slip of paper that proclaims that you have completed a form of higher education. That is not what is important to him, though. He wants to broaden his horizons as much as possible. In fact, if time and money did not stand in his way, Taggart would also be a math major. Taggart feels that “coming to school, we should all strive for education.”
He is currently taking 21 credits. Past semesters, on average, he took about 18 credits to fulfill the requirements for both majors.
Posted on the web by: Rob Cain
