Education Summary

In order to major in 4 subjects (Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering, & Physics) at Harvey Mudd College, I had to go through two primary hurdles/rules which are outlined below.

• Harvey Mudd has “Joint” majors that were created for multiple reasons, but the gist is that they replace very common double major combinations, such as Math & CS and Biology & Chemistry. Students are not allowed to double major in two subjects for which a Joint major exists.
• No Joint Major exists for Engineering, and in order for my Engineering degree to be ABET certified and fit with my other majors, I had to create an IPS (a special degree at Mudd) that is composed of the entirety of the standard Engineering degree as well as the entire CS degree, minus one class.

Because of this, in order to major in four subjects at Mudd, I had to get the following degrees:

1. My first Bachelor’s Degree is the Joint Math & Physics Degree.
2. My second Bachelor’s Degree is an IPS for Computer Science and Engineering that includes every element from the Bachelors in Engineering as well as the same requirements for the Computer Science Bachelor that a student in my year would have, minus one class. However, please note that although the degree doesn’t require this one class, I’m still going to take it anyway.

You might be asking: why am I getting only two degrees if I’m majoring in four subjects? This is explained in detail on the rest of the page, but the gist is that:

1. As stated above, students are simply not allowed to major in two separate subjects for which a Joint major exists for because the Joint major is intended to replace common double majors.
2. Harvey Mudd’s Clinic Program does not allow a student to be on two separate clinic teams at the same time. So, in order to satisfy the clinic requirements of the CS and Engineering majors, the majors need to be combined in an IPS.

Longer Explanation

Harvey Mudd College is widely regarded as one of the premier institutions for a rigorous education in science, mathematics, and engineering, and you don’t need me to tell you that: just look at our ratings!

During my undergraduate experience, I knew how much I loved programming tons of software and solving math problems, but I also knew how much I loved creating cool projects with my hands and modelling the real world. Because I couldn’t give up any of my passions, and also because I was deeply interested in the intersection between all of these fields, I decided to do the following:

I wanted to major all four subjects, a feat that has not been accomplished before at Mudd based on what the HMC staff and my advisors have told me. However, doing so would not just be a massive educational challenge, but a logistical one, too.

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At Harvey Mudd, each student is required to complete a capstone project. For some majors, this usually takes the form of a Thesis paper (like Biology and Chemistry) while for other majors, it takes the form of a Clinic project (Computer Science and Engineering). Many majors will also provide wiggle room if you want to do a Clinic instead of a Thesis, but the general rule at Mudd is that each student will complete a single capstone project that will satisfy their major’s requirements.

As an aside, the Clinic Program at Harvey Mudd is one of its prime educational opportunities where real companies (companies sponsoring clinic programs here) pay the college money to have students complete projects for them over the course of a school year.

This Capstone requirement becomes a big problem for students intending to double major, and a prime example of this is students who want to double major in Physics and Mathematics. The story goes like this: at Harvey Mudd, there are a LOT of students who want to double major in Physics and Mathematics. However, in order to satisfy the complete requirements for each major, each would-be double major student had to complete two clinic projects.

This is very impractical for a number of reasons. Primarily, the clinic program at Mudd is limited by the number of companies that participate, and since the program is designed for each student to do only do one capstone, a large number of students wanting to do more than one capstone would put unexpected pressure on the system and also could worry the companies, such as if the same student were to do a clinic project at two different companies, which could be a security concern (especially if the companies were rivals!).

To allow students to pursue their desires while also preventing students from doing multiple capstone projects, Harvey Mudd introduced the Joint Major system, and so the Joint Math & Physics major was born where the student has to complete requirements in both the Math and Physics departments, gets a chance to explore the intersection of these majors, and can graduate by still only doing one capstone project. Mudd has many of these joint majors because their students are so passionate, such as Joint Biology & Chemistry, Joint Math & Computer Science, and Joint Mathematics and Computational Biology (Math/CS/Bio).

However, the Engineering major provides another hurdle for trying to double major: ABET certification. Engineers are often responsible for the lives of people: if a bridge collapses because an Engineer got a lousy education, who is to blame: the engineer who went to college and got a degree, or the institution that failed to teach the engineer? To make sure the answer is never “the institution,” ABET exists as a special accreditation just for engineers to show everyone that the education that engineers receive is sufficient for them to create real products that are safe enough to not hurt people (fingers crossed). ABET accredits programs, not colleges, so the only option for engineers at Mudd to receive ABET accreditation is to go through Mudd’s Engineering major program.

So, if a student ever wanted to double major with Engineering, they would be required to complete the Engineering Clinic Program to satisfy ABET. Because of this, and also because engineering is (by far) the biggest and most difficult major at Mudd, a Joint major involving engineering was simply never developed.

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In order to get around all the problems I described as well as get everything approved by the Mudd admins and departments, I determined that the most feasible way to major in all four of my subjects was to obtain two Bachelor’s Degrees with the following stipulations:

1. My First Bachelor’s Degree is the Joint Math & Physics Degree.
2. My Second Bachelor’s Degree is an IPS for Computer Science and Engineering that includes every element from the Bachelors in Engineering as well as the same requirements for the Computer Science Bachelor that a student in my year would have. This Degree’s Capstone requirement is three semesters of Engineering clinic, which is identical to the standard Engineering Degree.
3. After deliberation, the Math & Physics Departments agreed that my Capstone requirement for the Joint Math & Physics Degree could be satisfied by the three semesters of Engineering Clinic so that I wouldn’t have to take two capstones (I was very fortunate to get this issue resolved)

You might be asking, what is an IPS? Mudd offers a special degree called an IPS (Individual Program of Study) that is essentially “make your own major, and if we approve it we will give you a diploma for it.”

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So that’s my education at Harvey Mudd! I’ll be the first to point out: is it correct to say that I’m a “quadruple major” if I’m only getting two Bachelor’s Degrees? This is a completely fair point, and people at Mudd seem to go one of two ways when this question comes up.

The first way goes like this: The Joint Major system was developed to make it easier for students who want to double major in these subjects do so without excessive administrative hassle and pressure on the capstone/clinic program. After all, the Joint degrees have the same (with slight modifications) major requirements of both degrees with one capstone requirement, and at Mudd, the administration does not allow students to double major in two subjects for which a Joint major exists because the Joint major was intended to replace common double majors. In brief, if you’re learning the same material and doing the same work that double majors did in the past but just calling it something different, it should be treated in the same regard as a double major, especially since we’re not allowed to get a “real” double major in those subjects anyway.

The other way goes like this. A true double major in something like Math & Physics (which, to reiterate, isn’t allowed at Mudd for two majors which a Joint major exists for) requires the student to do the complete credit and capstone requirements of both majors and then receive two separate diplomas for each major. There is a credit difference for doing the two majors separately versus doing them in a Joint major (doing them separately requires taking ~2 more classes than you would if you took them with the Joint major, and this is about the same for the CS + Math major as well), and these classes mean that you’re not getting a sufficient education to call yourself a double major. (As a side note, the Engineering + CS major I created is only lesser than a double major by one class). So, in total, my combination of 4 majors is 3 classes short of a “true” quadruple major, so it should not be counted as so.

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So, the answer is simple, right? It’s not a quadruple major, it’s a double major! It’s a couple classes short! In fact, we should be calling it, “A Double IPS-Double and Joint Major” to be of utmost accuracy! (It really rolls off the tongue)

However, there’s another factor we haven’t taken into account. What are graduates of Mudd calling these Joint majors? If you go to the Joint major LinkedIn pages of the Juniors, Seniors, and Alumns, you’ll see universally one of the following ways of representing it in shorthand:

1. “CS+Math” or “Math+Physics” Major
2. “Math/Physics” or “CS/Math” Major
3. “Math-CS” or “Physics-Math” Major
4. “Math & Physics” or “CS & Math” Major

And although people at Mudd know what we’re talking about, obviously the rest of the world perceives these as double majors! And what happens when we need to refer to these in shorthand with people who don’t know about the intricate history of the Joint majors and Mudd? If I need to fit my major into a small bubble on the front page of my website, what do I call it?! The choice is obvious: quadruple major. Then, if they want to know a bit more, I can give more details.

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Thanks for taking the time to read this, there are a lot of weird nuances to what I should call my major situation, and to be honest I don’t think there’s any “good” thing to call it. Maybe I should call it a “double-double” major?