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Issue date: 9/6/07
Academics

Nothing to declare? Consider these majors

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y student is plagued with three questions: "Where are you from?" "What dorm are you in?" and "What's your major?" Your parents control where you are from. The school controls where you live. But only you can choose your major.

Don't be fooled - all majors are not created equally. Nearly every major has some reputation associated with it. None are necessarily good or bad, but they immediately tip off students (and even professors) to your level of academic commitment (and, conversely, your level of, shall we say, social commitment). Most of the time, the level of difficulty associated with your major will determine what kind of social life you will be able to have (lest you risk failing school on account of one-too-many frat parties).

Probably the most pigeonholed students are the biomedical engineering majors (always referred to as "BME") and the chemical and biomolecular engineering majors, two extremely popular majors in the school of engineering. The former may be the most academically respected major in the university, but expect your BME friends to be spending some solid weekend hours on D-level. The latter, whose students are lovingly referred to as "BME rejects" (because it tends to be the default major for those who are not accepted into the highly competitive BME program) is also a tough major, but obviously doesn't carry quite the same respect as BME.

Even though the phrase "I'm going to Johns Hopkins" conjures the immediate response of "Oh! You're going to be a doctor," there still are tons of alternatives for the medically disinclined. If you arrive at Hopkins and suddenly realize that you should have considered business school or a liberal arts college, don't fret.Hopkins has great humanities and social sciences programs and a solid Entrepreneurship and Management minor (not to mention a business school for graduate students, from which undergrads inevitably benefit). The humanities at Hopkins hosts some of the best nationally ranked departments (such as French, art history, and Writing Seminars), most of which have surprisingly small numbers in them, given their acknowledged strength.
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