Triple major - what would happen?

[juillet]

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’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.

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.

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.

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.

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.