<p>Hello All</p>
<p>I’m a junior in high school and im absolutely obsessed with the idea of the college of letters. im wondering though if anyone knows whether students enrolled in the college of letters ever double major outside the college of letters? For example, Wesleyan offers a math/econ major that also has my eye, and i can think of nothing id rather do than both the college of letters and math/econ. i know the college of letters is demanding, but if i really put my mind to it (and did a lot of work) could a double major outside the college of letters be done? or is that simply not feasible?</p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p><a href=“WesMaps - Wesleyan University”>WesMaps - Wesleyan University;
<p>JohnWesley posted this a few months ago. I’m not sure if it is useful. BTW my son is also interested in econ/math but is interested in the College of Social Studies.</p>
<p>Not actually sure that it’s possible, because COL is at least 11 credits (plus you have to attain intermediate status in your language during your frosh year, which is 0-2 more credits, depending on your proficiency) and MECO looks like 14 or 15. That’s 26-28 credits, none of which will overlap. Factor in that with COL you’ll be abroad second semester sophomore year, and basically, you’d never be able to take anything other than COL or Math/Econ classes. Except, of course, classes to fulfill GenEd expectations, because MECO appears to require them. </p>
<p>At any rate, it’s a horrible idea, because you’d never get to do anything fun. You can still TAKE math and econ classes while being a COL major, and get to take the Javanese Gamelan class or West African Dance or Drawing I or Intro to Environmental Studies or International Politics or something else interesting. You don’t come to a liberal arts school to specialize that intensely that soon.</p>
<p>how many credits does a typical student at wesleyan take in the course of four years?</p>
<p>and can anyone add any insights into the BA/MA programs? are those five year programs?</p>
<p>32 are required for graduation. That’s four classes each semester for eight semesters. You can have up to two AP classes counted for credits. Many people end up with more than 32 credits, through taking phys ed, music, dance, art, science lab classes on top of their regular course load.</p>
<p>In the sciences, you can stay for a fifth year, tuition-free, and get a MA.</p>
<p>Is it also true that there is an MA/BA program for mathematics? Does the same five year, tuition free, situation apply?</p>
<p>Only two AP’s huh? Yikes. I’m hoping that using an AP score for language placement would not use one of those AP credits.</p>
<p>Thanks for the quick and helpful responses~</p>
<p>Oh and one more question. I know you touched on kids taking more than 32 credits, but do kids often take more than four heavy subjects at a time? Is special permission required from the Dean? How would that work?</p>
<p>I can’t really tell whether the BA/MA program applies to math too. Math is housed in the science tower, but I don’t know whether it’s part of the program for tuition-free fifth year. Here’s the grad website: <a href=“Graduate Studies - Wesleyan University”>http://www.wesleyan.edu/grad/</a></p>
<p>You can choose whichever AP’s you want to count, although I believe if you do English, they just count it automatically since there is no follow-up course required to receive credit. Here is where you find out how your test factors in, and what score on the test and what class you have to take to get credit: <a href=“http://www.wesleyan.edu/registrar/Adv.Placement.html”>http://www.wesleyan.edu/registrar/Adv.Placement.html</a>. </p>
<p>Taking more than four heavy subjects at a time is not a particularly good idea, but some people do it, for various reasons. Your advisor has to approve any increases in your credit limit (four). They will usually do this with no questions if it’s to take non-academic classes like dance or music, but you might run into more difficulty if you’re unnecessarily taking five really hard classes with lots of reading and papers. Five challenging academic classes will really eliminate a lot of time you have for extracurricular activities like clubs or groups or sports or just hanging out and having fun. </p>
<p>One other thing to note is that you can’t sign up for more than four classes during pre-registration. So you have to wrangle your way into the fifth class during drop/add anyway.</p>
<p>jumble_j,</p>
<p>could you discuss the similarities and differences between the college of social studies and the college of letters? </p>
<p>the fiske guide calls the college of social studies conservative while the college of letters is referred to as liberal. is this the case?</p>
<p>is the css more well known to graduate schools? and, speaking generally, are css or cl students regarded highly by graduate schools?</p>
<p>lastly, (im really piling them on!) are the css and cl programs markedly more difficult than an alternative wesleyan degree? (i know css is referred to as the college of suicidal sophomores…)</p>
<p>Basically the only similarity between CSS and COL is that that you declare them at the end of your frosh year, as opposed to your sophomore year like every other major. </p>
<p>They’re entirely distinct majors. I wouldn’t necessarily call them conservative vs. liberal, because they cover totally different subject matter. CSS people do tend to be more pre-professional types (to the degree that exists at Wesleyan… which is not much), whereas COL folk are more just people who see their intimate, integrated program of study as the best route to a liberal arts education. You can read the websites at <a href=“College of Social Studies - Wesleyan University”>http://www.wesleyan.edu/css/</a> and <a href=“Welcome, College of Letters - Wesleyan University”>http://www.wesleyan.edu/col/</a>. </p>
<p>As far as grad schools go, I have no idea. Like I said, CSS people are more likely to be en route to an MBA or law school than COL, but other than that I have no clue. CSS’ers commonly go into things like investment banking, where I highly doubt you’d find anyone from COL doing that. </p>
<p>As I’m not CSS or COL, I couldn’t tell you exactly how hard they are. However, CSS majors write one 5-page paper every week and have a ton of reading. They don’t seem suicidal to me, but… anyway. One thing about both is that they’re not graded until the end of the year, when they take cumulative exams. So that could be more or less stress, depending on how you like to work. I’ve heard COL referred to as the “College of Love”, but that certainly doesn’t mean it’s not difficult too. I think that the workload in each of these programs is comparable to taking challenging classes in any other major. It is, of course, possible to get through other majors without being particularly challenged.</p>
<p>I think that’s just about right. In terms of challenging vs. not challenging, I think it depends entirely on how green the grass is academically on the other side. People inside CSS may envy non-CSSers their access to the rest of the Wesleyan curriculum; remember, from sophomore year on, you will have almost no room in your schedule for electives (a language course or studio art course, perhaps.) People outside CSS may envy those on the inside their access to some of the best teachers in the social sciences and some of the most interesting courses; CSSers don’t have to worry about being locked out of a CSS course. Add the fact that CSS is on a different calendar (trimester vs. semester) and you see that the decision-making can get quite complicated.</p>
<p>In terms of grad schools, Jumble<em>J has laid it out very succinctly; basically, if your aim is an arts and science degree, COL’s reputation is superb. But, whether it is more superb than Wesleyan’s rep as a whole? That’s a matter of debate. Same for CSS. Wesleyan students have no trouble placing in the top arts and science grad programs in the country. Where CSS may have an advantage is in its traditional role as a _de facto</em> pre-law and pre-business program. A generation ago, certain CSS faculty were said to have connections with the University of Chicago. I’m not sure that’s still true. There may be different connections with different law schools, depending on which faculty are nesting at CSS these days.</p>
<p>Is the COL on the trimester program like the CSS?</p>
<p>I take it from this discussion that it is virtually unheard of for students to double major inside and outside the CSS or COL?</p>
<p>I have never heard about the trimester system. If they break up CSS classes into three sections as opposed to two, it doesn’t affect anything else in the rest of the university. I don’t quite see why it’s an issue.</p>
<p>Occasionally people double major in COL with a language or something… but no one double majors from CSS, as far as I know. It already IS interdisciplinary.</p>