Majoring in something. I don't understand...

[29palms]

I could never understand people that would say something like, "I have a Bachelors with a major in Business". How do you "MAJOR"? What the #$@! does that mean? Tell me if I'm right. I understand a major to be like if I took general studies, but more of my electives???? Or classes??? were more of business related courses????
I've seen applications that say.....DEGREE......What did you major in? What was your minor? Say what? Can somebody please explain this very basic stuff I never quite understood? While you're at it, what is an ELECTIVE mean? Like I can choose which of four courses I need for some subject?

[NAP]

Majors and minors show in-depth study in a specific subject. At EC, a major is 30-33 credits (out of 120 for the whole degree) with15-18 upper-level in one subject. A minor (called an area of focus at EC) is 21 credits with 6 upper-level.

This post will explain more about electives (there are 3 types - major, gen ed, and free) and college credits, but some of the specific TESC policies are out of date.

http://www.degreeforum.net/general-educa...#post57772

[cookderosa]

Yep, NAP shared good info.

"Bachelors" means 4-year degree. Bachelors of Arts, or Bachelors of Science are two IDENTICAL types of degree- an individual school MAY distinguish between the two, but there are not "rules" it's up to the school. A bachelor's degree is about 120 credits. Half of those credits (60) are general education. That is a general requirement that you take a little bit of this and a little bit of that to become "well rounded" of sorts. These classes are considered introductory and carry the 100 or 200 level number in them (English 101).

The other half of your degree is your major and some electives. Electives can generally be anything (FEMA, underwater basket weaving, etc) and are essentially a chance for you to explore things that are interesting to you but around here, those are gimmie credits taken via FEMA for zero $ tuition. Love those free electives.

Your major is almost always 30-36 or more credits. Sometimes they tell you what must be included (Statistics, research methods, etc) and other times it's wide open (social science....) the big difference is now you are going to go up and above the 100/200 level courses and take 300/400 level work. This will generally include more intensity, maybe more writing in an academic style, more research, etc. It really differs depending on the major and the school. So, figure someone who "majors" in psychology has taken 2 psychology classes in their gen eds (like any random student might) but then they've taken an additional 10-12 classes in psychology beyond that.

Hope that helps!

One more thing, elective means different things at different schools. At TESC, a general education elective is any class you want picked from either social science, humanities, math, or science. A free elective is any class under the sun- literally.

[OE800_85]

One thing that always confused me was the use of BA and BSc in the US. In Canada (as I imagine in most other countries) there's a set requirement for what subjects constitute arts, and what subjects constitute Science. So, your bachelor degree type indicates the field of study.

ie: Arts: Social Studies, languages (sometimes fine arts), History
Science: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Computer Science, Math...

Whereas in America it seems the difference between BA and BSc is mostly about what electives you take (credits not included in your major or required)

[ryoder]

I know at FSU the BA Computer Science required 6 credits of a foreign language while BS degrees did not. I think the BS degree included 6 more computer credits instead of spanish or french.

[NAP]

Yep, NAP shared good info. ....

I can't go wrong by sharing one of your many excellent posts! I like this new one, too! Great info!

[NAP]

One thing that always confused me was the use of BA and BSc in the US. In Canada (as I imagine in most other countries) there's a set requirement for what subjects constitute arts, and what subjects constitute Science. So, your bachelor degree type indicates the field of study.

ie: Arts: Social Studies, languages (sometimes fine arts), History
Science: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Computer Science, Math...

Whereas in America it seems the difference between BA and BSc is mostly about what electives you take (credits not included in your major or required)

That is what I expect, too, but I guess it varies among the US colleges and universities. I know some well known universities only offer BA degrees but they do have science majors.

One university that I was looking at offers only BS degrees for all of the math, science, and computer related majors except for the math and science majors specifically. Those 2 also have a BA option for people who want to apply them toward humanities and social science areas and the BS option is for people who want to apply them toward math and science areas.

As long as potential graduate schools and employers understand it, I guess the distinction between the two doesn't matter as much as I thought it did.

[scorched]

For me majoring just means what your specialty is, separate from your gen eds. For example I am trying to complete a BS in electronics engineering technology, so the obvious major is electronics and engineering type of credits. These have nothing to do with the english, humanites, social science types of classes I need to round out my degree. Now my daily job is in IT, but the EET degree was closest to what existing credits I already had. So if I wanted to major in something IT related I would need to change to a degree in Computer Sci, MIS, CIS that had a "majority" of specialty credits in computers, but most of my gen ed's stay the same. Same for any other degree, when someone majors in Business it just means they took most of their courses associated on how to run a business; management, accounting, finance, etc.
So someone might be considered an expert in their major compared to someone who only took 1 or 2 classes. Math is a great example, we all need a few math classes, typically 2-3 (6-9 credits) to graduate from the average degree, but for those who want to major in it need alot ( tesc requires 33 credits).

And minors are a secondary specialty, I know a few engineer majors who get a minor in math because they had to take 15 credits of math anyway and a minor might only require 3-6 more credits, even though everyone knows engineers are good at math it can be listed on a resume that you have a major in Eng and minor in Math.

Some people even double major, specializing in finance and accounting for example. Each major in a double requires at least 24 credits of specialty in each one. This of course means you go way past the normal 120 total credits for a single degree.

And there are two kinds of electives, gen ed and major. Just as it sounds, some gen eds are allowed to be your choice, and each major allows a certain number of credits to be your choice. Going back to my example, even though I am majoring in elec engineering, my electives are in avionics applied from my time in the Air Force. It could be similar for your aviation experience as well.

just my outlook on things.

[cookderosa]

I can't go wrong by sharing one of your many excellent posts! I like this new one, too! Great info!

AAAAHHHH!!!!!! I swear to you I didn't even read the link, so i didn't know it was my alpha-numeric for dummies thread!! I feel like an ass, ignore me!

[NAP]

Jennifer, that is such a funny mix-up! Don't feel bad about it at all. I should have mentioned your name with the link, like I normally do. I didn't mean to embarrass you either. You always have great responses and we really appreciate them!