i want to have 2 majors and 2 minors could i finish college in 4 years???
Favorite Answer
all hours in semester hours
A typical BA/BS is 120 hours
A typical major is 30-50 hours (we’ll use 40)
the typical BA has enough elective room built in for one minor 18 hours
A typical core requirement is 60-80 hours – we’ll use 60 because some of your core will apply to the majors or minors (but will be lower level or prereq)
so, you want to complete a core (60 hours), 2 majors (40 hours each for 80 hours), and 2 minors (18 hours each for 36 hours) for a total of 176 hours. If we assume as high as a 20% overlap of major requirements (for example both biology and math are going to require higher math) then we can knock off 35 hours as duplicative. That leaves a program of about 141 hours.
to complete 141 hours in 4 years only going fall and spring, you’d need to carry a load of 35+ hours per year or roughly 18 per semester. No problem there. 18 is the max load at most colleges. Remember too that in these four years you could go to 3 summer sessions and get 6 or so hours each for 18 hours. That’d knock your per semester requirement load to only 123 which is the number of hours your peers attend in a typical 4-year program.
So, yes, it can be done and it can be done without too much difficulty if the original assumptions are true. If your school has a 90 hour core and 30 hour majors – there’d be some challenge.
The best way to see if this can be done is an excel spreadsheet. Make 5 columns. Column 1 is the core requirement, then major 1, major 2, minor 1, minor 2
Then go over it and eliminate all of the duplicates from one column. (hopefully you’ll have more than duplicate and several used more than a couple times) and count total hours left.
Divide the total hours left by 8 (semesters in 4 years) and you’ll know what load you really have to take to achieve this goal.
Careful here and don’t graduate before you finish the whole deal or you’ll face second degree rules. That will add hours to your requirements.
Some schools, especially the smaller private ones, relish this kind of thing and love students who do interdisciplinary stuff. Other schools really hate it.
How about going to Evergreen in WA where you make your own major, or Knox in IL where nearly everyone has 2 minors? Look around and you will find a school for you.
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