Interesting Double Major interest

SmithieandProud
Wed, 03 Aug 2011 14:32:06 +0000

I agree with others that the best thing you can do is pick a liberal arts college with both a good physics and a good theater program. Don’t focus on musical theater, I don’t know of any liberal arts colleges that are that specialized and if he has the chance to take good acting classes, as well as perhaps voice lessons or dance classes on the side, that will be plenty. Also, I agree that going for a physics degree and then specializing later on in astro-physics is the smarter way to go. It opens up a much wider array of schools and he could always pick up a few astronomy courses here and there outside of major coursework.

Then, once he’s at the college, he can decide which of these directions he really wants to follow, and which he’d prefer to do on the side, but perhaps not as a major or just as a minor. I think a lot of kids become unnecessarily obsessed with the idea of double majoring or majoring and minoring, without realizing that it’s absolutely possible to pursue a secondary interest in college without adding it to your transcript. Not only is it possible, but at an LAC it’s probably desirable, because if you’re not bound tightly to fulfilling the requirements of two majors, you can still do your duty by your major and have time to explore not only your secondary interest but also other interests he may develop in college. He may discover when he gets there that he really hates college-level physics (a disciplined study of astrophysics is a lot different than the general interes that most high school students have), or he may discover that college-level theater programs lack the things that he loved about theater in high school. Or he may decide he suddenly wants to study German. When you have someone with diverse interests, just take them to a place where they can really explore a wide range of things and set them loose to figure out what specifically they want.