Hey everyone! I’m dabbling with the idea of triple majoring and wonder how bad of an idea that would be. I’d like to do Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Psychology. All things I love and have great interest in.
I also want input from those in different engineering fields of how they like their work life balance and how school was.
Thanks everyone!
That would be a LOT of work. Whenever you can, get OTHER PEOPLE to pay for college. If you get an Electrical Engineering degree or Computer Science degree, you might be able to get a future employer to pay for courses, that get into computer-human interaction which is psychology applied to computing.
You will have some flexibility in your EE or CS degree, and can certainly take one or two, and maybe 3 or 4 psych classes.
It is not unusual to get a Bachelor’s in one thing (like EE or CS) and then go back and get a Master’s degree in something, a specific subset of Psych that goes with what you are already doing.
After your CS or EE degree, or during breaks, you could look into psych courses at coursera.org or edx.org as a “fun” thing.
You don’t have to learn everything for your whole life in just four years. Get one thing done well, and then move on, instead of trying to do it all at once.
I went to school with a guy who double majored in Comouter Science and Philosophy. Why philosophy? Because it was a tool he wanted to have in his toolbox. One of the best programmers ever.
As a college professional now, I’ll never tell you that you can’t or shouldn’t do a thing. I just don’t know enough about what’s in your head to make snap judgements on your behalf. But I will advise that triple major is hard. It can be done, but it is a lot of work. Plan on 1.5 times the credits for just a double major. Then multiply again for the triple.
You’ve got some good advice in the thread already about using minors and electives, or getting one degree then getting your employer to send you back for another. Or just going back on your own. That is a thing, more often than ever before.
Rather than thinking about the subjects and majors you want on paper, how about considering what problems you want to solve? What sort of difference do you want to make in this world? That answer will guide your course and degree choices much more thoroughly and satisfyingly than “what do you want to major in?”
Best of luck.
Hi, former college academic advisor here, current HS counselor. I would strongly advise against this. It’s entirely unnecessary for a triple major. If you want to be an engineer, major in engineering. That’s all you need. Maybe do a minor in the other subjects.
I have the ability for tuition costs to be a non factor thanks to my job and am thinking of a few things to major in.
For anyone who has triple majored or even just double majored, can you give an analogy as to how hard it is to someone who hasn’t even started college yet.
Any thoughts are appreciated.
Double majoring? Mabye, depending on the majors. If one of those is engineering, CS or hard sciences, forget about it. You wont have time come junior year.
Triple majoring? IMO, no. Three majors of ANY type is just going to be an enormous amount of work, especially during junior and senior years. It might seem awesome on paper, but trust me it will get old really fast.
I had a friend who double majored in CS and Music a few years ago and dropped out in year 2. He said the workload increased exponentially during sophomore year and couldnt it handle. He was top of his class at my HS. I would save your mental health and study those topics on the side.