Undergraduate Program

Double Majoring in Course XIV

Overview

Students may combine a course 14 major with a major in any other department. In order to receive two majors, students must complete the 17 GIR's and the departmental requirements for both majors. Some double-major combinations are more popular than others. Course 14 double majors with 6, 18, and 15 are especially popular.

Single and double majors may count three of their economics subjects toward the eight-subject HASS requirement.

Guidelines and Administrative Procedures for Obtaining a Second Major

Students with a cumulative GPA ("Cum") of 4.0 or higher after completing at least one semester in one major may petition the Committee on Curriculum (CoC) to pursue a second major. The petition must be submitted to the CoC no later than Add Date of the term prior to the term in which the student intends to receive the S.B. degree.

Blank forms for second-major petitions, with instructions, are available for downloading and printing from the CoC's web site at: http://web.mit.edu/registrar/forms/index.html.

Double Majoring in XIV and XV

A copy of Undergraduate Program in Management Science, a detailed description of the course XV (Sloan) undergraduate major, is available in E19-715.

The CoC petition form asks for a term-by-term listing of subjects already taken, and a term-by-term plan for taking the remaining subjects, for the curricula in both departments. Here are some guidelines that may be particularly helpful for economics majors:

1. Do not plan to take 14.30 (Introduction to Statistical Method in Economics). The Economics Department will accept the combination of 18.440 (Probability and Random Values) or 6.041 (Probabilistic Systems Analysis) and 15.075 (Applied Statistics) or 18.443 (Statistics for Applications)-both of which are required for Course 15-in place of 14.30 for double majors. This does NOT work in reverse, i.e., the Sloan School will NOT accept 14.30 (by itself OR in combination with econometrics) as a substitute for either 18.440 or 6.041, or 15.075 or 18.443.

2. There are four concentrations on the Management Science curriculum: Finance, Information Technologies, Marketing Science, and Business Analytics & Operations Research. When you fill out your petition, you are expected to include specific subjects fulfilling one of these concentrations. (You may change your mind later, if you wish, about the subjects in your concentration-or even about your choice of concentration.)

3. Check the MIT Bulletin course listings to make sure that subjects are offered in the terms in which you plan to take them.

The completed petition should first be signed by the student and by the student's Economics faculty advisor. It should then be submitted to the Management Science Undergraduate Education Office, E48-541, together with a current "unofficial transcript." Unofficial transcripts can be obtained from the Student Services Center in 11-120 free of charge. (Please note that a WebSIS printout is NOT acceptable in place of an unofficial transcript.) After Course 15 has approved the petition, it should be brought to the Student Services Center in 11-120 or directly to the CoC in Room 5-111. The CoC will inform the student and Sloan Undergraduate Education Office when it has approved the petition.

How the Petition Affects Sloan Bidding:
All MIT students are required to "bid," as part of pre-registration, for any Sloan graduate subjects they want to take the following term. The bidding process is a prioritized lottery. As soon as Course 15 is notified by the CoC of an approved petition to pursue Management Science as a second SB degree, a student will be considered a "Sloan student" for purposes of bidding priorities. In order to ensure sufficient time to process petitions prior to bidding, students must submit signed, approvable petitions to the Management Science Undergraduate Program Office on or before Drop Date of the first term in which they wish to bid as Sloan students.

HOWEVER-
Sloan Bidding Priority is UNNECESSARY for more than half of the Sloan Curriculum!
Some students who are primarily interested in Economics, but who also want to pursue a second major in Management Science, believe they should declare Course 15 first in order to obtain the bidding priority of a Sloan student as early as possible. This is unnecessary and could result in inadequate advising regarding the Economics curriculum. Five of the 14 subjects required in Course 15 are offered by other departments, and require no bidding. (These are 14.01 and 14.02, which are also part of the Economics curriculum, as well as 18.440 or 6.041, 18.06, and either 1.00 or 1.000 or 6.0001 + 6.0002 or 6.005.) There is no bidding for Sloan undergraduate subjects (15.053, 15.075, 15.279, 15.301, 15.370, 15.379, 15.501, 15.411, 15.412, 15.501, 15.772).