What if I want to major in three related degrees. I’m thinking political science, economics, and constitutional law (for a career in politics). How long would it take? Is it too difficult?
Many schools do not have “con law”, as it usually is part of your poli sci suite of classes. Which school has that?
Anywhooo, it would take longer than 4 years. If you plan very well, you can probably take most of the classes that interest you with a major/minor using them as electives and not be too much over 4 years.
Constitutional Law is a class you take in law school, not college. You can double major in economics and political science, or major in one and minor in another.
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Why torture yourself??? I think it’s much better to broaden your horizons by taking things outside of what you would usually tend towards. It’s an important part of liberal arts education to get a broad understanding. You are also there to hone research skills and critical thinking skills. Believe me, you would be shocked at how important a class like, say, African art history or Sci Fi genre as literature, will inform your understanding of politics. Really and truly. It’s the classes that come from outside of your POV that will give you perspective on what your POV actually is–and how to problem solve creatively.
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Do not take law classes as an undergrad. Law schools don’t want to see them. They are probably not that good at that level, and they seem a waste of time when you could be taking the mind-broadening classes that are important as an undergrad. Law is a grad school degree in the USA. Are you from outside of the US? Also while it’s wonderful to want to study constitutional law, I commend you, you may want to look into what sorts of cases that you as an attorney would cover if that’s your specialty. You may find that there are a lot of interstate transport cases, for example.
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Poly sci and econ are great together. And then in addition to your wonderful double major (or major and a minor), take, you know, theater set design, and art history and Russian lit and intellectual history of the Enlightenment and a foreign language, and study abroad. You know, get the most out of your education.
If you want to study constitutional law in law school, then get As in undergrad, practice your LSAT until it’s above 172, then apply to a top 14 law school with a good loan-forgiveness program. Be sure to look at the PROFESSORS at the law schools of your choice. Look at what they publish and what they are interested in. That will help you decide the best law school for you. Best of luck.
Also, don’t get too hung up on the word ‘major’: it means very, very little beyond undergrad. Grad schools (including law) won’t be impressed- they will just look at your GPA. Many/most won’t even notice whether you majored in physics or polisci. Choose a uni with flexible requirements and take the courses that are interesting to you. Leave yourself room to discover things that you didn’t know you wanted to study- or to really dig into something in particular.
Why? Have heard that some potential employers/grad schools are underwhelmed by double majors- not to mention triple ones.
I think a double major is fine, as long as you can show that you have interest in the intersection between the two or are fascinated by how the areas intersect or interact. Psychology and computer science, for example, could be a good double major for someone interested in artificial intelligence or human-computer interaction; philosophy and mathematics might be good for someone strongly interested in logic and symbolic systems; and economics and political science is a popular double major given how related the fields are and how much they influence one another. Where double majoring gets kind of weird is when students feel like they HAVE to or that it’ll look better on their resume. It doesn’t look any better than a single major.
Triple majors are almost always students who simply are bad at deciding what they want to study, which is not what any employer really wants. It’s also easier/better, if you really are passionate about studying the intersection of three fields, to do a student-designed/individualized/independent major where you explore how they make up a field. A student might be able to replicate a cognitive science major, for example, by studying CS, psychology, linguistics and maybe a little philosophy. Or you could make a political economy major with some classes from political science and economics and some other humanities and social sciences that are relevant to round it out. (Some colleges have that major already. Others have a PPE major - philosophy, politics and economics.)