ucdavis: double majors = two degrees?

thenameis (

thenameis) wrote in

ucdavis,
@ 2010-07-16 03:59:00

double majors = two degrees?
does "double majoring" in english and philosophy (both BA/under the same college), mean working towards two bachelors degrees or two majors that count as one bachelors degree?

thank you

(17 comments) - (Post a new comment)

	iamkatiei 2010-07-16 11:38 am UTC (link)
	I double majored but one technically received one BA as far I know. I think if you do one major in a BA field and one major in a BS field, then you get two. Not so certain, though. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	jenfullmoon 2010-07-20 10:35 pm UTC (link)
	That's right, I got a BA and BS (in different colleges). (Reply to this) (Parent)

chiaki777
2010-07-16 12:18 pm UTC (link)

one or two, you still have a bachelor of arts in English... and Philosophy. That's probably worse than being a communications and Japanese double major. Those people will never get jobs, not even in research. So it won't matter.

You're asking questions, which will take you in the right direction, just remember to think about what is the right question to ask to reach the right set of answers you need.

(you get one degree, and one only. Even if one major was a BA and the other a BS, you'd have a B.A.S. if you do that)

(Reply to this) (Thread)

phatkitten
2010-07-17 12:48 am UTC (link)

one or two, you still have a bachelor of arts in English... and Philosophy. That's probably worse than being a communications and Japanese double major. Those people will never get jobs, not even in research. So it won't matter.

Seriously? Your major doesn't have to have anything to do with your career, you know. Obtaining a degree just means you're capable of obtaining a degree, not that you can necessarily do a job. College != vocational school.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

chiaki777
2010-07-17 02:21 am UTC (link)

Unless you get a degree in science. Then it shows you're competent in doing something aside from sitting around and complaining on blogs all the time.

Seriously, what you study matters. It shapes your perception of reality and how you approach the world. Don't act like college is a BS hoop you only need to jump through to be guaranteed some kind of higher paying job than as a clerk at Target.

You go to college thinking it's only a hoop to jump through, you only get what you get out of it, a hoop. Congratulations, you have a degree. What use is a degree that you have no attachment to aside from "the ability to finish college."

I'm sorry, I went to school with the full intension to learn something useful I may use in the future. Whether this be English, Psychology, or nuclear physics, what you want to learn and get out of college is what you get. Pity you only seemed to have learned that it's a matter of "getting a better job than a high school graduate."

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

itskelp
2010-07-17 01:48 pm UTC (link)

um Tomo. one of the guys that works at my dad's company was a Russian major. he's a programmer. speaking of which, my cousin was also a Russian major. she now teaches sunday school.

one of his clients majored in art history. she's an accountant.

Jamie fucking Hyneman has a degree in Russian linguistics.

your major can and often will have nothing to do with your career.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	_terra_ 2010-07-17 04:59 pm UTC (link)
	your major can and often will have nothing to do with your career. Notice how all of the majors you spoke of are Social Sciences. I don't really know a single person in the science or engineering colleges who has a career in mind that does not directly involved their degree or the skills they've acquired from it. So...umm...yeah. Invalid input, sea plant. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	itskelp 2010-07-18 05:17 am UTC (link)
	there's more of us non-science majors than science majors, and i'm sure there are plenty of biochem-ers who end up elsewhere. and tomo is a social science/humanities major so i don't see how is this invalid. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	jerums89 2010-07-23 08:43 pm UTC (link)
	My friend was a biochemistry and molecular biology major and he's now pursuing a career in real estate. My mom's coworker was a marine biology major and now works in marketing for a major national bank. Also, there's a difference between what you "plan" to do with your degree, and the career that you eventually end up in. (Reply to this) (Parent)

phatkitten
2010-07-17 02:26 pm UTC (link)

Well, of COURSE what you study COULD be useful to your career. I doubled in Linguistics and Communication. I've been a copy editor/proofreader since I graduated in 2005. Communication has been mostly useless to me, career-wise; I only doubled in it because I didn't need to work too hard to get the second degree AND it sounds impressive to people who don't know how lame the major is at UCD. Linguistics, on the other hand? MUCH more useful to editing than, say, an English major. But I didn't study Linguistics so I could lock in an editing job; I studied it because I liked it AND what I liked happened to be a useful tool for my intended career. But how many editing classes did I take? ZERO. I didn't get any job training from my major, as useful as it sometimes is for the work I do. How did I get my current job? By working on-campus jobs relevant to my career.

Science is definitely a different story. Most scientific companies prefer to hire people with degrees in a relevant field, because it proves that they've studied it closely. But is it REQUIRED? No. If you have the SKILL, you don't necessarily need the degree. You could major in Sociology, do programming in your spare time, and still land a programming job after graduation. The bullshit degree isn't going to be the burger-flipping curse most people make it out to be.

Your hypothetical Communication and Japanese major may be very skilled in something that involves neither of their degrees. They'll still be able to get a job IF they have the relevant skills. An English and Philosophy major will probably not spend their life deconstructing literature or philosophical ideals, even though that's what they're doing when they obtain their degree. But to say that those degrees are useless when applying for jobs is ridiculous.

Seriously, as useful as some majors can be, your degree is still basically just proof that you can work hard toward successfully completing a years-long project (i.e., a stint at a 4-year college). It's a valuable experience, and a degree is a valuable piece of paper. Employers faced with hiring two equally capable candidates will usually go for the one with a completed degree. But college is not vocational school, and to think that certain majors will guarantee you a job -- or even deny other people the chance of ever being gainfully employed -- is something most people don't realize until they're a few years removed from school.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	(Anonymous) 2010-07-16 03:28 pm UTC (link)
	When you double major, you get two degrees. However, if both majors are in the same college, you only get one diploma. If you do two majors in two different colleges, you actually get two diplomas. Whohee! (Reply to this) (Thread)

	solid_snack 2010-07-16 05:23 pm UTC (link)
	So theoretically, if you never wanted to leave Davis and could somehow get around the unit cap you could have up to 4 diplomas? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	chiaki777 2010-07-17 01:57 am UTC (link)
	No, you could have two bachelors, a master, and a doctorate, at which point you could very well go back to school and get a second bachelor, master, or doctorate, and if you're important enough, someone might honor you with an honorary doctorate. (Reply to this) (Parent)

witless_nerd
2010-07-16 03:29 pm UTC (link)

If you complete a double major you will recieve a degree in both subjects, I've got a BAS in Philosophy and Chemistry for instance. This applies even if the majors are in different colleges, as well as triple majoring (No college will allow any more than three majors at this time, but you can have up to five minors).

In some schools, on the east coast mainly, you can complete two degrees, complete with seperate breadth requirements etc. which then is a double degree (so serperately a BA and a BS, or two of either).

Out of curiousity, why did you want to know?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	witless_nerd 2010-07-16 03:30 pm UTC (link)
	Also, what difference does it really make? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	chiaki777 2010-07-16 08:16 pm UTC (link)
	An opportunity to have more degrees sitting in your office? I try to save every official looking notarized paper so I can one day have an office decorated in various things... like my high school senior superlative for being a fiend on AIM. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	_terra_ 2010-07-16 07:49 pm UTC (link)
	Whoa. Double Bachelor's all the way. OMG, so intense. What does this mean? ignore me (Reply to this)

(17 comments) - (Post a new comment)