Don’t bank on double majoring to guarantee a job after graduation.
According to Director of Career Services Pat Rose, double majoring in some cases is a “very good thing” that “may give you additional credentials.” She added that in other cases, though, taking on a double major might not be necessary or even desired.
“Might it enhance a job hunter’s prospects? Sure,” Rose said. But, she added, “Employers are looking for more things than academic work. They’re looking for leadership experience, they’re looking for internship experience and they’re certainly looking for academic success,” not just academic workload.
Germanic studies professor Liliane Weissberg, an academic advisor, agreed. “I don’t think that employers are necessarily impressed by double majors. They are impressed by what you do in terms of content, whether your grades are very good and sometimes … a double major does not lend itself to a good GPA.”
Both Rose and Weissberg added that pursuing a double major devotes many of students’ allotted courses to fulfilling requirements, sometimes precluding them from participating in non-academic activities and from taking elective courses.
College freshman Greg Kappes, who had initially planned on pursuing a double major in biology and music, is no longer planning on doing so for just those reasons.
“I decided against a double major because if you do that, it decides all of your classes for you,” especially when the majors under consideration do not have any cross-listed courses. Instead, Kappes intends to major in music, minor in biology and take a number of language courses that his freer schedule will allow.
Some students, however, are undeterred by the workload and required courses associated with multiple majors. James Katz, a 2011 College and Engineering graduate, pursued a triple major in philosophy, politics and economics, psychology and computer science.
Katz said in an email that a chief “challenge was the course load. I think I averaged over 5 credits per semester; I took summer classes as well. It was a serious time commitment. There was an uncountable number of all-nighters pulled, especially once I started taking computer science classes.”
Katz, who is now enrolled in graduate school at Stanford University, said that he thought his multiple majors were a benefit in post-graduate plans.
“I imagine that most people who major in psychology don’t also major in computer science,” Katz said. “I think the fact that I had demonstrated a technical engineering background in addition to knowledge relating to the social sciences probably helped me stand out in the admissions process for grad school.”
Katz added that having a double major indicates to future employers a diversity of interests and that a candidate is capable of handling a lot of work.
Having a diversity of interests, though, does not always equate to pursuing a major in every field of passion. Weissberg rather suggests that students who are indecisive about which of their passions to pursue should strongly consider minoring in those fields.
“Double majoring is not the only option to document your interests,” Weissberg said. If students pursue a minor — or multiple minors, for that matter — they don’t have to commit themselves to as many required courses and can still have an additional credential to add to their resumes.
College senior Anna Sabo is graduating with a major in communications and three minors. These three minors — cinema studies, consumer psychology and English — are “all admittedly somewhat interrelated … and I was able to double count a lot of my classes,” she said.
Sabo added, “I think that I chose my minors not only because of my academic interests but also because of my awareness that these three minors would prove highly representative of me as an individual and marketable for my future endeavors,” showing her as a “well-rounded, passionate, interesting individual.”
Because of the diversity of offerings at Penn and the different types of students that attend, “there’s no one right answer,” according to Rose.
“In some cases, it might be natural and wonderful to double major,” Weissberg said. “But please do not take it as something that you ought to do be employable. That is not the case.”
