Kitsch Magazine: Fall 2015

SEEING DOUBLE
a meditation on double majoring at Cornell
by Alejandra Alvarez
With my junior year well underway, thoughts
concerning the impending reality of my life after Cornell and
what I will do with it now occupy nearly ever corner of my
mind. As a double major in English and Psychology, I have had
to begin asking myself what I intend to do with these two
degrees once the cap and gown have been shed and the fanfare
of graduation has subsided. How will I apply the knowledge I
have gleaned from these two degrees to my navigation of the
professional world?
I’ve reached far back into the mind I possessed as a
freshman to remind myself why I chose to study these two
disciplines in the first place. The resulting process of soulsearching
has been a tumultuous one. Surrounded by some
of the most brilliant and motivated minds in this world, I
have had days where I have criticized myself for being too
passive in my quest to land a position in graduate school or
a job. Instead I have spent a disproportionate amount of time
pondering how best to synthesize my two degrees. I believe
this is a plight many a double major has faced.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, the
percentage of undergraduates choosing to double major
increased by 96% between the years 2000 and 2008. Though
the overall representation of double majors in the American
collegiate body remains small (about 5.5 percent as of 2013)
at some institutions upwards of 40 percent of students pursue
multiple majors. Why the sudden and widespread urge to
expand one’s academic horizons?
Selecting a discipline to major in proves to be a
complex decision for most undergraduates in the United
States. Some enter as freshmen secure in their undecided
status, content to spend their first few semesters taking
a variety of courses in the hopes that one will nudge them
in the professional direction that is right for them. Others
check the box next to a specific major while filling out their
Common Application and hit the ground running, taking the
associated curriculum and seeing this academic path through
to graduation. The decision to double major, however, entails
a bit more than either of the two aforementioned categories.
It requires a justification to oneself as well as to society and
one’s family, a dedication to both subjects, and a vision of a
future in either of the disciplines. But more importantly, it
involves envisioning a future that ideally combines these
disciplines.
This is the beauty of the double major, a beauty that
makes the occasional doubt from others as well as from yourself
endurable. Nobody double majors for no reason—the decision
to take on multiple majors is a thoughtful, well-constructed
one that is more often than not in line with the true interests
of a student. And for some students, two majors isn’t enough:
Neil C. ‘17 is a triple major in Biology, French, and Government:
“I was—and still am—extremely interested in microbiology, and
felt that the Biology major was the best avenue for pursuing
that. I chose the French major because my mother has a
doctorate in French, and instilled a deep appreciation for the
French language and culture within me. I have always been
pretty interested in foreign policy, so I started the International
Relations minor. Then I realized it might actually be easier to
major in Government, so I am currently pursuing that as well.”
For Neil, his decision to triple major was a confluence
of personal affinity, interest, and practicality as he went on
to tell me about his dreams of becoming either a member of
the Armed Forces or a doctor. “If I become a doctor, then the
humanities classes I have taken would encourage me to treat
my patients as something greater than a collection of parts
that require repair. I truly believe they would make me more
conscientious and empathetic as a physician. If I were sent to
war in some capacity, then I would have a better sense of the
moral and historical ramifications of any actions I may have to
take,” he said.
The College of Arts and Sciences houses the most
double majors I know at Cornell. I do not think this is a
coincidence—the humanities lend themselves to double and
triple majoring more than any other discipline here at Cornell,
as well as in academia in general. As Neil’s experience and
so many others’ may confirm, the A&S curriculum, due to its
flexibility and its broad selection of humanities and STEM
courses, very much fosters interdisciplinary study, or the
application of certain concepts acquired in one discipline to
those acquired in another.
I myself have detected traces of some of the concepts
in my Psychology courses in the content of my literary studies,
and vice versa. Nothing that you learn in an English class is
irrelevant or unconnected to something you discuss in an art
history course; nothing you learn in a mathematics course
can’t be traced along the arc of history or found in the archives
of scientific discovery; no language you learn to speak will
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