Is A Double-Major Worth It?

If you’re a college student and your advisor recommends a double-major that’s not related to your future plans, don’t automatically assume it’s your best course of action. From the institution’s perspective, keeping you in school an extra semester or two gains them additional revenue. From your perspective, staying in school to earn a second major will cost you more than you think:  

• Let’s pick $10K as tuition for one semester.

• Let’s pick $60K as the salary for your first job after graduation.   

If you postpone graduation by one semester and stay in school for an additional four months, you’ll pay $10K more in tuition plus forgo four months of salary (four months of a $60K salary is $20K). The total cost of your gaining that second major is $30K ($10K tuition plus $20K in lost earnings).  

A few years ago, I was advising a group of marketing-major students; each of whom had been advised to double-major in marketing and supply chain. I did a double-take when they told me this because those two majors just don’t blend together. Marketing requires a very creative flair, whereas supply chain is very structured and logical. For sure, there is a creative bent to supply chain in order to see through problems and then come up with solutions, but it’s not the same as coming up with messaging for a marketing campaign. I’ve never talked with anyone who loved marketing who also had a genuine interest in supply chain as a career; and I’ve never talked with anyone in supply chain who gave one iota about marketing and messaging. I told my student group to forget the additional coursework and to just finish the marketing major then work on finding that first job.  

The bottom line? That second major won’t necessarily benefit you enough to outweigh the time and effort you’ll sink into it. It does, however, benefit your college. Just get the degree and dive into the work force. You’ll likely learn more in your first job than you ever would in that additional coursework.