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How do college majors work?
I know that the major is what the degree is for and minors help to learn the major. But is the major started during the third year of college and during the first two years, I'm taking classes that will help me learn that major?
For example: If I already finished High School but still want to take Calculus classes for an Engineering major:
1. Would I be able to learn it during the first two years and start the major the next two years?
2. Or does the major start the very first year and I can take Calculus at the same time?
3. Or am I out of luck and cannot take Calculus at all?
4. Or is there some other way I could learn it before I go to college?
2 Answers
- 8 years agoFavorite Answer
1. A minor is entirely separate from a major. A major is required; a minor is not.
2. Most universities have a deadline by which you have to declare your major, though switching from one major to another is not usually difficult.
3. Some majors have strict requirements that must be met before you are accepted into the program. These can be prerequisites (classes that you have to have taken before you can officially belong to the program, such as your Calculus example) or other things, such as auditions, depending on the major.
4. Many majors are competitive. You may go to a school because is has a particularly good program, but you may not yet be accepted to that major when you first go to the school. (In other words, you may get accepted to the university, but not to the major). This is very common with Engineering, and some music/ arts programs, and other things too, I'm sure. What most people do in this situation is:
a. take prerequisite classes along with general-ed classes in order to get accepted to the major.
b. if necessary in the meantime, declare an open major and then switch later.
c. take classes during summer and winter in order to "catch up" on prerequisites in order to still have a chance of graduating "on time."
Good luck!
- 8 years ago
In the United States and Canada, an academic major or major concentration (informally, major or concentration) is the academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits. A student who successfully completes the courses prescribed in an academic major qualifies for an undergraduate degree.
Basically when you start college your start your path to begin your major. Like if your majoring in English your first year maybe a college math, a poetry, speech, English Composition, English Technical Writing, Crammer. But if your doing nursing for example you may just have Anatomy, English & Comp, Statistics, and Psychology. So you begin a path that leads to the degree your knteerested in. When you start college your pursuing your major. So when someone says "I'm majoring in French". Its another way of saying "I'm taking courses to pursue a degree in French". :)