I’m currently a math and linguistics double major in University of Maryland. I am admitted to University of Michigan as a transfer student. I wanted to study cognitive science there, but now I am hesitating because the tuition is way higher, and UMich does not recognize many of my credits (I transferred to Maryland from China so I earned most of my credits there). It seems that it might take me one more year to graduate from UMich than from UMD, and I really don’t want to do some math courses over again. On the other hand I’m really interested in UMich’s cogsci program. I’m studying linguistics now but I feel like it might be better to leverage undergraduate time to study cognition in general and see what I’m really into, because I plan to do graduate school (formerly in linguistics) and I don’t want to find that’s not what I like most in half of it. I thought about just doing cogsci in UMich and giving up on math major, but I’m already a junior now and have spent most of the last three years studying math, so it would be quiet a pity to just leave it here… Do people having experience with UMich’s cogsci program think it’s really worth it? Will it give you an edge on applying to graduate school in related fields like linguistics?
The vast majority of Michigan’s courses for the cognitive science major are housed in the linguistics, computer science, psychology and philosophy departments. You should be able to get experience in the field by taking courses that you are interested in in one or more of those departments at UMD. I would not recommend transferring given the increase in cost and time you would need to spend.
A cognitive science major would not give you an edge in grad school.
Agree. Stay in UMD. Double transferring is way too much.
Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field made up, as bouders mentioned, of linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, computer science, philosophy and sometimes other areas. Maryland has a very good computer science department and a very good psychology department; you can study the same things there as you can at Michigan.
If you want to go to graduate school in linguistics, you should major in linguistics. A cognitive science major might be able to get in if they studied a lot of linguistics…but it’s better to just study linguistics. Math is always good to add; computational linguistics and natural language processing are things you can get into with this background (and some CS).
Stay at UMD. Take a couple of cog sci classes there if there is time in your schedule. Pursue further studies in grad school.
@bouders @juillet @happymomof1 Thank you for advice guys! Yes I could take equivalent classes at Maryland, but the thing is that UMD has less flexible major requirements, so if I stay and take all the classes that I want to take in Michigan plus required classes, most likely it will take even longer to graduate, but it’s still cheaper.
Also although my plan for now is grad school in linguistics, I feel like I’m interested in how the mind works in general. Just a little afraid of figuring out I’m not totally into linguistics and cannot get into programs in other fields because of my background. Seems like CogSci at Michigan has a larger variety of options and research/thesis opportunities…? But that’s still a large amount of money. Do you guys think UMich could really offer worthy guidance+opportunities? Really appreciate your advice!
You can get into grad school in Cog Sci without having an undergraduate major in that field. What you will need is coursework that is related to the graduate field of study, good grades, and good letters of recommendation. When you apply to grad school, they will look at the specific courses that you have taken, not the name of your major.
I am confused. Is UMD cheaper or UMich cheaper even though it would take longer?
Maryland has an individual studies program (https://www.ivsp.umd.edu). You could create a cognitive sciences major there.
The linguistics major also has a grammars and cognitions track. You could also major in linguistics and minor in another cognitive science field, like comp sci or psychology.