Triple major - what would happen?

College Majors
1

I’m just posing a hypothetical here… I do NOT intend to do this personally, but I am curious about a person who did manage to pull this off.

Assume that a person goes to a state university. (Not a major highly prestigious one… just your regular University of X state school). Further assume that person triple majors and graduates with majors in political science, business administration, and information technology. Further assume they graduated with some form of latin honors - cum laude, magna, summa.

In other words, they graduated with formal concentrations in the fields of business, social science, and STEM.

Assume that they did not continue any further with college (i.e. no grad school).

What would you think of this person? More importantly, how would employers view this person? How well would they likely do in the job market? Would it help them or hurt them? What would their short term job outlook look like versus their long term?

2

This is a question so vague that it is difficult to answer. Really, it depends: on the kinds of jobs they’re applying to, on which hiring managers are seeing their application, on the internships and skills they’ve acquired in college, on who they compete with in the market.

Majors typically require around 40 hours a piece to complete, and there’s little to no overlap in the three majors listed. 40 x 3 is 120, which is usually the total number of hours required for a bachelor’s degree. So a student who is triple-majoring like this is either overloading like crazy or they are taking longer than four years to graduate. Neither is inherently bad.

Personally, I would regard a triple major as a student who lacks focus or has a problem with indecisiveness, maybe even an issue with being creative about how to pursue interests outside of the narrow confines of prescribed courses of study. Professionally, that wouldn’t matter - I’d be more interested in what the student brings to the table. Did they blend those majors and their interests in interesting ways (e.g., interested in social/political policy surrounding tech and information science? Interested in managing within the tech world)? What kind of internships or part-time jobs have the held? What skills do they know - do they know SQL, Python, statistics, R? And what kind of job am I hiring them for? Which skills I value are going to be different when considering them for an entry-level program manager at a tech company vs. an entry-level IT person at an insurance company vs. an analyst at a think tank.

So basically…the same as a single or double major.

3

I’ve finally found a little information on how those with double majors have, vs those with single majors, fared after college. At http://web.williams.edu/Mathematics/devadoss/careerpath.html is a depiction of how specific double majors have influenced subsequent career fields for Williams College graduates. (Choose the Double-Major tab. Then put your cursor on an item on the right that corresponds to one of the majors. People who have only that major are on the left where there is just the name of that major. People who have a major in addition to that are on the left where there is the name of THAT major. The job areas are on the right.) Assuming that statistically significant numbers are involved, it’s indicated that adding an economics major to a political studies major, for instance, enhances the odds of working later in the banking/financial sector.

Then, a few paragraphs into http://lesswrong.com/lw/ifo/what_should_a_college_student_do_to_maximize/ there’s: “Should I double-major? There are some earnings statistics here; to summarize, two majors in the same field doesn’t help; a science major plus a humanities major has lower earnings than the science major alone; greatest returns are achieved by pairing a math/science major with an engineering major, which increases earnings “up to 30%” above the math/science major alone. I’d guess these effects are largely not causation, but correlation caused by conscientiousness/ambition causing both double majors and higher earnings.” The link on the word “here” in the second sentence didn’t work for me, so I don’t know what place these findings refer to or how they were arrived at.

When you are in college, college is your world and there is a tendency, of course, to want to make the most of it. However, after it, college deflates in importance, becoming eclipsed by subsequent events. Employers look out from this post-college world. Yes, college degrees are sought in recruits and usually the major field matters a lot, but the academic details subside from the focus. The most important thing by far is experience in doing the kind of work the employer wants done.

When employers have to replace an employee who is leaving, they tend to look for a replacement who has similar credentials. When a business or other organization is expanding, it will carefully identify what it needs to get done and what qualifications suit that work. Where a college major is entailed, it will be a single major that will be visualized. The qualifications for the opening will not be framed in terms of a double major, because double majors are relatively rare, especially, of course, specific combinations - the recruitment would be too slow.

If a double major is really complementary, like IT with business administration, it can be positively perceived. Political science added to IT when pursuing an IT job won’t help (or hurt). If a candidate has two unrelated work-specific degrees (e.g. accountancy and nursing), it can hurt, because hirers in each area would be apt to think the candidate uncertain about commitment and prone to leaving for the other area.

It is still more difficult to see the rationale for a triple major. If I received a resume with three majors, my first thought would be that maybe it’s a lie and, when that got allayed, two conflicting thoughts would be: 1) the person is a hard worker, and 2) the person is perhaps keen about academia but less keen about the almost always less intellectually rich (in my experience) world of work. If they were different, work-specific majors, I would suspect that the person has been terrifically insecure about the job market.

4

I’m sorry, but I saw this post and the responses and just had to register to comment because I am in such disbelief. Not at the OP, but the advice he is getting.

To the OP - the advice you are getting from these guys is the same advice I have heard given to students who are about graduate summa cum laude. Disparaging remarks like “You shouldn’t graduate summa! Employers will think you are “too academic” and don’t have real world smarts!” In other words, lame (near “I’m jealous and trying to destroy you”) comments intended to promote mediocrity by mediocre people.

Furthermore, I know you state this is just hypothetical, but I have a feeling it’s more than that… and that you have (or are) going to pull this off, and are worried because mediocre people have given you disparaging comments. Regardless, someone who majors in three distinct fields of study - business, social science, and a STEM field - with honors is, IMO, near savant level. You basically nailed the “big 3”. The fact is, mastering highly diverse fields is HARD. A lot of people can’t do it. That makes them negative towards anyone who does.

Some of the best and brightest thinkers and inventors in our history have had highly diverse academic and career interests. It goes beyond the scope of this post to go into those details, but look up some of the “big names” and their backgrounds. You would be surprised how many were concurrently social scientists/artists/major STEM contributors. People who can master social science, business, and STEM usually decimate most others in the job market.

To the people who have responded to the OP - I think you need to get out of academia and spend some time in the real world. I’m a grad student, but I spent 10 years in professional careers after undergrad before going to grad school.

I can tell you this - the workplace is absolutely dominated by people I would classify as pretenders and imposters. Employers know this. These people bring a huge amount of mediocrity and (sometimes) disaster to organizations. They have a narrow view, and can do ONE THING really well, but they lack the ability to see the big picture, lack the ability to understand anything outside of their narrow expertise. This is seriously limiting.

Sometimes it is just mundane. For example, I have worked with college grads who majored in the social sciences in a government agency. These people were expected to employ simple technology in the course of their work. They regularly failed to do so proficiently. Sometimes, they risked operational security due to incompetence when it came to following (and understanding) IT security practices. Occasionally, we would get a double major who had both a STEM and social science background. They absolutely dominated the social science employees in our workplace. All of the ones that I had the privilege of working with were fast tracked to positions of substantially greater responsibility within 1 to 2 years, while the raw social science majors hated their lives and were absolutely making no progress in their careers.

Organizations WANT people who have a multidisciplinary knowledgebase. To the OP again - you need to look at the CIA, FBI, and NSA. Seriously, look at the intelligence community job postings and what they actually say they want. You will find that they ALL want people with diverse knowledge backgrounds. It is not uncommon to find postings that will say “political science major WITH additional computer science degree”. Most people have no clue about these opportunities because only a small elite group of people have this kind of background… but trust me, these opportunities are out there. Might having 3 majors hurt you in say, applying to be a jailer? Yes, because you would be vastly overqualified and your peers and supervisors (typically of low education) will wonder WTF you are doing there. However, do you have a substantially better shot at being a CIA intel analyst than someone with just one major? Yes, you do, a huge shot, and I’m not even exaggerating…

Also, major matters in the working world. It matters a lot. Diverse majors give you options in the working world. A ton of people in the career world are trapped in jobs they hate because they do not have this diversity. A raw political science major is NOT going to be given a shot at a job that someone with a computer science major has for a computer scientist job. Period. It doesn’t matter how many years they have in the working world. As a major in business, STEM, and social science, you will be able to traverse into a wide variety of careers to an extent most people can only dream of.

Don’t worry about what the people here say… Diversity of education is far more important than “levels” of education. For example, someone with a B.S. degree with majors in business, social science, and STEM will absolutely rip apart and destroy someone with a B.S. in criminal justice, masters in criminal justice, and PhD in criminal justice.

5

I’m not in academia. I work at a major technology company.

I have literally never heard anyone tell a student not to graduate summa cum laude. First of all, it doesn’t make sense because by the time you are “about to do so” there’s not much you can do about having Latin honors. Second of all, it’s not something you ever have to tell employers. And third of all, many employers value a high GPA, so I don’t see how anyone would advise a student not to do well in college.

If you follow my posts here, you will see I am one of the biggest champions of a well-rounded liberal arts and sciences education. In fact, I am often the person bringing up the big names who have shown interest in a variety of fields. But you don’t have to triple major in anything to study widely. In fact, trying to complete three majors might actually impede study in a variety of fields - because you spend so much time trying to complete the course requirements that you miss opportunities to take classes that just interest you or might be complementary to what you’re taking on the fly. I think students should focus on acquiring skills and knowledge that appeal to them and enhance their capacity for critical thought and communication. Those don’t have to fit within the narrow structures of triple degrees.

So what I’m saying is NOT “study one thing and one thing only!” What I’m actually saying is that you can focus your depth on one major (or maybe two closely related ones) and find other means through which to explore varied interests.

Well, that depends, right? If the employer is hiring someone to teach criminal justice at a university, I think the PhD in criminal justice will be better. Or if you’re hiring a senior software developer, having an MS in computer science might be important. I know in my particular job we would value someone with an MS or PhD in psychology over someone who had a bachelor’s degree in three areas (or three different bachelor’s degrees). We wouldn’t really care that you could speak French or took some marketing classes or had a solid grasp of chemistry; what we would care about is whether you have the high-level social science research skills necessary to do the job here, and in our field that’s evidenced by an advanced degree in a social science area (or a long history of experience).

Diversity of education isn’t always far more important - and given the job ads I’ve seen and the actual employees I know (in my little slice of the world, of course) I’d say higher education one area is more highly valued than having more than one major, especially as you rise to more senior roles.

It depends on what you do, though, right? A marketing position might really value someone who has education in both social science and business, for example.

6

Juliet,

I realize you haven’t heard anyone say “don’t graduate summa cum laude”. However, believe it or not, I’ve heard it a great deal from people who graduated with near 2.0 GPAs. The only thing I can figure is that, at best, it is a form of rationalization from them (i.e. high GPA = academic that is detached from reality, so I don’t want a high GPA anyway). Or, at worst, an attempt to sabotage others who likely will be their (superior) competition in the marketplace. In any case, neither of us are going to make the case for this with our anecdotal arguments. All I can say is, I have personally heard people with low GPAs try to disparage people with GPAs. Take it for what it is, I suppose.

I don’t know how accurate it is to say that double (or even triple) majoring limits the variety of courses that one can take. Even in a triple major situation, you should have (at most universities) an abundant range of courses to choose from. Most degree plans, even outside of lower level free electives, will contain requirements such as “Choose 3 upper level POLS courses.” “Choose 4 upper level COSC courses” etc. True, these are still choices within the major fields of study, and maybe you may have to forgo that Painting in the Dark Ages class you were interested in, but I would argue it would be of little consequence.

You say in this regard that students should focus on acquiring knowledge that “appeals to them”. I think a lot of millennials were given that advice and now are finding themselves seriously burned once they hit the real world. To be blunt, employers are not interested in workers who have knowledge that appeals to them (the worker). They are interested in workers who can bring value to the table. The sad practical truth is, we live in a capitalist system. That means these kids are going to have to sell their labor to survive. Someone who double majored in computer science and political science has a much better chance of doing that than someone who majored only in political science (or, to a lesser extent, only computer science).

I am 33, and what dumbfounds me the most is that so many in my generation (and especially those millennials just 10 years behind me) have absolutely no idea what awaits them in the working world. They have no comprehension that our society is still a meritocracy (to a large extent) and that they are competing with others in the marketplace. (I don’t mean to sound like some crazy capitalist, but it is what it is.) As a grad student, I have run into soon to be graduating undergraduate seniors with a sole major in fields such as criminal justice and sociology. Not only are they going to be at a serious disadvantage with only one of those majors behind them, but from my discussions with them, they don’t even have a competent grasp of the one major that they have. To make matters worse, these majors think they are going to land their first job out of college as a sociology or CJ major at 80k+. At the same time, I encounter a myriad of F1 (foreign students) from Asia majoring in the most rigorous of the STEM fields. Our kids are simply going to be crushed with the “study what appeals to you” advice. Again, more anecdotes, but this is just what I have seen.

Yes, study what appeals to you, but IMO, you absolutely must double major to be competitive after graduation - and at least one of those majors needs to be in a STEM or business field. I would go so far to say that anyone in college with only one major today is playing with fire… not fire, explosives. You simply cannot compete with that narrow of an education anymore. And no, “I majored in CJ and graduated with a near 2.0 GPA. Now I’m going to fix that by going to law school, or getting a masters in CJ!” is not going to fix the problem. I have encountered far too many people in that exact situation (weak major & terribly low GPA) and “law school” was their backup plan.

Obviously, I am not saying that a graduate education is not worthwhile. (Of course it is.) However, there is still massively abundant opportunity out there for people with a well rounded undergraduate education and a high GPA. And when I say “well rounded”, I mean double (or yes, even triple) major in diverse fields; not this “I randomly chose some courses out of CHEM, ARTS, SOCI, ENGL that sounded interesting to me.”

A lot of people do not look at our economy from the viewpoint of sectors and industries. (As well as the realization that the performance of those sectors and industries is often cyclical) The way I look at it, a major is basically a “key” to enter a sector. i.e. a computers science/IT/MIS degree allows the holder access to the technology industry. A psychology/sociology/social work/etc degree allows the holder access to the human services sector. This is why if you double major, it is extremely important that your majors be in totally different fields. A double major in sociology and political science, for example, is a key to essentially the same door. A double major in political science and accounting are keys to two entirely different doors.

Sadly, I think there are a lot of people out there who do not realize this. They think that you access different sectors of our economy with higher levels of degrees, and I still have no idea why this is. I have encountered people working in government who hold a political science degree tell me that they hate government and want to get into the technology sector, so they are going for a masters in political science. They do not realize that, if they want into the technology sector, they would have a much better chance returning to undergrad and getting a second B.S. in a technology field (or even an AAS in a technology field). [Actually, I think part of it is arrogance. They know they cannot be admitted into a computer science masters program with an undergrad in poli sci, yet think they are too good to return to undergrad for computer science, so they elect to go to grad school in the same field as their undergrad major and expect something to change]

So, to the OP, if it was up to me, I would say do undergrad right the first time. Personally, I would rather have the “key” to different economic sectors than be locked into one, especially if that sector is in a downturn, or you find you hate it. There are a lot of people (way too many IMO) in the working world who absolutely hate the industry that they work in, but lack the qualifications to leave, and their life situation does not permit acquiring the skills needed to leave. Don’t end up like them.

7

Business + political science + STEM subject is not a ‘trifecta’ of 3 separate fields- business & political science are both social sciences.

As @juillet says, what will matter much, much more than the majors listed on a resume is how the person has backed them up through work experience and any narrative arc. An incredibly obvious one would be the PoliSci + Business + Environmental Science student, who has done internships in a political office and in both the marketing and research divisions of a company that make, say, an superior widget for testing for biological contamination. But (imo) an Accounting + a Political Science + a Bio major who has worked at the DQ every summer will be at a disadvantage over a student with any one of those majors who has done internships in their field each summer.

So, OP if you are aksing 'would the fact of a triple major covering all 3 subjects in and of itself impress potential employers, I would agree with @juillet that the answer is essentially, no. The context will make all the difference.

@lurker323, I profoundly disagree with you on these points, and know plenty of single-major undergrads coming out and getting good jobs. They have used their time in college to get jobs and internships, to shape a direction so that their academic background + experience make them interesting to employers.

On the other hand, I agree that the problem of this:

is real, but the problem is not single majors. It is a combination of making a university degree the de facto standard for any and old jobs and really poor advising from secondary school onwards. When my parents went to college any college degree gave you a leg up - and there were only a fraction of the number of majors available. As my kids go to college they have 80-100 majors to choose from- not counting interdisciplinary and independent, and in many fields you need a Masters just to be considered for a job. College advisors at Big State U are there to get the kids through the college system first, not work out the employment prospects of any given major{s).

8

Just some interesting facts…

Georgetown University economist Anthony Carnevale has compiled some statistics that hit home to exactly what I am saying. (FYI - Georgetown has a track record of doing incredible research in regards to employment data.)

His research has found that 26% of AAS STEM majors earn more than non-STEM PhD holders. Let that sink in for a moment. 26% of STEM associates degree holders are besting non-STEM doctoral graduates in the marketplace.

Quote from the article: “It’s become less about the degree level, and a lot more about what you take,” Carnevale told me in an interview earlier this year. “The whole structure that we all grew up with has essentially broken down.”

Some more very interesting stats are available here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/want-to-earn-more-money-study-stem/2011/10/28/gIQALikjPM_blog.html

The simple fact is - you cannot traverse into other fields (except with very rare exceptions) without the educational credentials needed in that field. Having an education credential in only one field locks you in.

9

But that is objectively untrue. Most people don’t double major, and most college graduates are employed. Moreover, there’s no evidence that double majors have lower unemployment rates or a better probability of getting a job than single majors.

Also, “STEM” is a catch-all - biology, computer science, certain business and chemistry majors have similar unemployment rates as some social science majors and economics majors have higher unemployment rates than humanities majors. See here:

https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/9t0p5tm0qhejyy8t8hub

That is an incredibly narrow and quite factually inaccurate way of looking at majors. For one counterexample, I majored in psychology in undergrad, my PhD is in public health, and I currently work in technology (and not human services). I know some people who majored in science fields who currently work in human services. I know a lot of people with psychology majors who work in finance or marketing. I know a philosophy major who works in finance. I know a history major in management, and I know a dance major in management. I know an economics major who works in human services.

Actually, their better bet would be taking some prerequisite coursework and getting an MS in computer science, or trying to move laterally into the field through experience (e.g., maybe their next move is in a science & technology policy position, and they take some programming courses through their employer). An AAS in technology may or may not help much depending on what the goal is.

At risk of sounding flippant: So what?

-First of all, we’re talking about employment, not salary. I think most people who go into human services-related careers, for example, realize that they aren’t going to be earning the same amount as a software developer or a marketing manager. That’s not why they chose the career. If a history professor is perfectly content with his $70K salary and loves his job, who cares that he doesn’t make $100K like the fresh-out-of-undergrad software developer?

There are also lots of plumbers and carpenters who probably make more than lots of social workers and teachers. But if you don’t want to be a plumber or a carpenter, that doesn’t matter.

This is probably the most irritating part of the conversation about college degrees these days - the presumption that the value of a career is wholly encapsulated by salary.

Still, the original contention wasn’t about salary - it’s no secret that STEM jobs pay more on average. The original discussion was about employment levels.

-Also, that means that 84% (aka most) of non-STEM PhD holders make more than AAS majors.