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Double majors are smart, hard workers who can endure more pain than average. (Who willingly signs up for that except for driven individuals?) It'd be good if w

Double majors are smart, hard workers who can endure more pain than average. (Who willingly signs up for that except for driven individuals?) It'd be good if we had more proxies for assessing this.

nonrandomstring 2y ago
> Who willingly signs up for that except for driven individuals? Idiots who didn't read the prospectus. I doubled in CS and EE. In the UK that was called a "joint honours". Not sure many places run them any more, but that was the 80s. What they didn't tell us was that it isn't 50% or one degree and 50% of the other - it's 75% of a comp. sci degree and 75% electronics engineering, taught concurrently by two separate departments. I sometimes had to make a choice between which lecture to take when they were opposite sides of the campus.
bruce511 2y ago
I suspect it varies a lot by institution and subjects. When I did my degree in Comp Sci I completed most of a math degree as well. I bailed on it in the last semester because I decided I wanted to just relax and enjoy my last 6 months there. And my career was always going to be computers, not math. These days my alma mater requires you double major just to graduate.
neilv 2y ago
What about people who don't double-major because they need to also work a job, or for economic reasons they need to graduate as soon as possible, or minimize the credit hours and fees they pay, or they're doing undergrad research, or they need to focus on GPA, or they care enough about their major to spend any discretionary time on that? Why give double-majors any preference at all over those other people, who don't sound like slackers?
- echelon 2y ago
  If people are doing good work, I trust they'll find a way to signal it. That doesn't mean you throw out good signal to equalize the playing field. Everyone can cut their own path to success. Some make themselves visible with their endeavors. It doesn't have to be a double major.
  - neilv 2y ago
    Point taken about not throwing out what one thinks is good signal. But I disagree that people will find a way to signal that they're doing good work. I didn't see much at all of that signalling until I was around the fancy-pants universities (and the difference was striking). And even there, the self-promoting level (skill, opportunity, and stomach for it) varied widely.
the_snooze 2y ago
>It'd be good if we had more proxies for assessing this. Work experience outside the classroom, basically: part-time employment, athletics, internships, undergraduate research, completed projects, organizational leadership. Of course, this is mainly for traditional students at four-year institutions where these opportunities are common. It's tougher if you can only take classes part-time.

Double majors are smart, hard workers who can endure more pain than average. (Who willingly signs up for that except for driven individuals?) It'd be good if we had more proxies for assessing this.

nonrandomstring 2y ago

> Who willingly signs up for that except for driven individuals? Idiots who didn't read the prospectus. I doubled in CS and EE. In the UK that was called a "joint honours". Not sure many places run them any more, but that was the 80s. What they didn't tell us was that it isn't 50% or one degree and 50% of the other - it's 75% of a comp. sci degree and 75% electronics engineering, taught concurrently by two separate departments. I sometimes had to make a choice between which lecture to take when they were opposite sides of the campus.

bruce511 2y ago

I suspect it varies a lot by institution and subjects. When I did my degree in Comp Sci I completed most of a math degree as well. I bailed on it in the last semester because I decided I wanted to just relax and enjoy my last 6 months there. And my career was always going to be computers, not math. These days my alma mater requires you double major just to graduate.

neilv 2y ago

What about people who don't double-major because they need to also work a job, or for economic reasons they need to graduate as soon as possible, or minimize the credit hours and fees they pay, or they're doing undergrad research, or they need to focus on GPA, or they care enough about their major to spend any discretionary time on that? Why give double-majors any preference at all over those other people, who don't sound like slackers?

echelon 2y ago
If people are doing good work, I trust they'll find a way to signal it. That doesn't mean you throw out good signal to equalize the playing field. Everyone can cut their own path to success. Some make themselves visible with their endeavors. It doesn't have to be a double major.
- neilv 2y ago
  Point taken about not throwing out what one thinks is good signal. But I disagree that people will find a way to signal that they're doing good work. I didn't see much at all of that signalling until I was around the fancy-pants universities (and the difference was striking). And even there, the self-promoting level (skill, opportunity, and stomach for it) varied widely.

the_snooze 2y ago

>It'd be good if we had more proxies for assessing this. Work experience outside the classroom, basically: part-time employment, athletics, internships, undergraduate research, completed projects, organizational leadership. Of course, this is mainly for traditional students at four-year institutions where these opportunities are common. It's tougher if you can only take classes part-time.