Double Major, Double Trouble?

Bright-eyed and full of wonder, I applied to UCSB during my senior year of high school to be a Communication major. Did I fully understand what a Communication major really studied? Not at all. Was I confident in my ability to talk to people and connect with others? Absolutely. 

Upon taking my first course in the Communication major, I knew I was in the right field. To this point, I haven’t taken a class within the department that I wasn’t excited to attend.

During the winter quarter of my first year at UCSB, I took a seminar that hoped to introduce first-year students to research and networking with faculty. One of our seminars was a walk around the lagoon with a Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration faculty member. During this class, I found myself fascinated by the restorative burns conducted by the team to remove invasive species surrounding the lagoon and reintroduce native organisms. At the end of class, everyone simply dispersed and moved on from the lagoon. 

Yet I remained there, staring at the body of water so many found musty or never took time to notice. For the following week, I’d fill my conversations with facts about the lagoon or retell its man-made history to anyone who would listen. While sitting in my Environmental Studies 3 course, a class I had just picked up as a GE, I listened to the professor with a newfound intent. 

I listened and wondered, “Could I pursue environmental studies?” The thought had never crossed my mind… I mean I dropped APES my senior year of high school after a week. Searching up “UCSB Double Major Form” on Google had not been in the cards. However, I truly did love the world around me. My heart swelled at the thought of giving back to the Earth that has done so much for me. At the end of the day, I will always advocate for following your heart and passions in every setting. So without waiting another second, I submitted my form to double-major during the same lecture where I had the thought to do it. 

DOUBLE MAJOR PROS

So far, my time spent as a COMM and ES double major has been incredible. I have periods of doubt, wondering whether I am suited for my majors or if they truly incite fascination within me. However, there are moments when someone asks me about the environmental communication research I do and suddenly I’ve been speaking for five minutes straight. I have found such a deep love for academia through my majors that I can’t believe I hadn’t considered the two together sooner. 

I feel fortunate to receive such a wide range of knowledge from two different interdisciplinary fields. Initially, I wondered what a connection between Communication and Environmental Studies would even look like, yet even that question highlights the pressing need for greater attention to Environmental Communication. Not only am I able to participate in discussions regarding human behavior and then another concerning human impact, but I also have the opportunity to understand how we can utilize both together to better the state of the world. 

I’ve had the chance to connect with many faculty members who have diverse educational backgrounds, planting some networking seeds that I am excited to watch grow in the coming quarters. A double major also connects you with a tighter-knit academic community within UCSB, I am constantly looking for other double majors like me and have made even closer connections with faculty members who are established in both fields. 

The material and skills I learn in one major often come quite in handy in other settings as well. I feel well-equipped and extra smart when I can support something I say in one major class with additional evidence I learned in a different major’s class. 

DOUBLE MAJOR CONS

However, if you gave me one chance to redo anything, I would have walked up to me a year ago and shut her laptop before she even started filling out the double major form. Trust me, I love both my majors now endlessly. However, I truly wish I had spoken to some sort of advisor before adding on a whole other major. I thought I wouldn’t need to, I had found everything online and simply had to fill some papers out and send a few emails. And it worked! Everything was easily processed and in a few weeks, UCSB Gold said I was pursuing a BA in ENVS and COMM. 

Fast forward a year, and I’m scrambling to take summer classes so I don’t fall behind on the classes I need to take. I’m making countless spreadsheets to plan when I need to take each class without passing the cumulative 8 upper division unit limit across two majors. If I hadn’t randomly thought this year to add up all the units I still needed, I would’ve realized I was behind far too late. The worst part: I definitely could have avoided this. 

I could have approached GEs much more efficiently if I had maximized the requirements each class fulfilled. If you add on a major, you’ll want to minimize how many classes you need to take outside of major requirements, because, at this point, you don’t have units to spare. I wish I could explore other classes or take some classes for fun but I have to stick to the Excel spreadsheet I made that plans out the next two years. If a class I plan on taking next year suddenly isn’t available, I may go crazy. 

Double majoring has put me in quite another predicament during a few quarters. The fall of my second year I had the dawning realization that every class I was in actually mattered. Now that sounds sort of silly, but the joy of knowing that one of my classes required less energy or care lightened the workload my first year. That one GE with hundreds of students in a department I’d never touch again was the one time during the week when I didn’t have to listen carefully to lectures or lock in on the assignments. 

Recently, I can’t put in less effort in one class than another. While the diverse content I learn is enriching, it can be difficult to focus on memorizing information in all my courses for exams when one is about ethics in research and the other is about an endangered species. Every grade I receive frustratingly matters since each class counts towards some major requirement.  

In the end, I am extremely grateful for being a double major. Every class I attend reaffirms my love for both of my majors and I feel like I’m making the most of my college education. I wish I had planned everything out a bit more, yet a little stress now is worth how happy I’ll be in the future when I get to pursue a life in the two academic spheres I love the most. If you’re considering adding on another major, I always recommend thinking ahead and following the path that will make you happy.

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