Loyal to Many Subjects : Students Try to Boost Prospects by Cramming for Multiple Majors

UC Irvine senior Richard Smith lugs a paper shopping bag burgeoning with $218 in books he just bought at the campus store. And they’re all for only one quarter’s worth of classes.

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Fat books, thin books, magazines, manuals--his desk is covered with science texts. He likes them so much, he couldn’t settle on one science to study. So he’s majoring in four: physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics.

“This is not for the academically uninitiated,” Smith said of his majors, each of which is enough to numb a typical college student’s brain.

He’s not alone.

An increasing number of college students in Orange County and other parts of the country are tackling more than one major during their undergraduate career.

Between 1990 and 1994 at UCI, for example, the number of students who declared multiple majors grew by more than 200 students, or 39%. And they’re not stopping at double-dipping: In 1994, 14 people majored in three subjects at UCI, and one student--Smith--signed up for four.

Other universities have also seen upsurges. Between 1990 and 1994, the number of double bachelor’s degrees awarded grew by 63% at UCLA and 51% at UC San Diego.

“We even had to change our computer data system to make room for more than two majors,” said Jack Blackburn, director of admissions at Cal State Fullerton. “It’s about making yourself more marketable.”

Many students do it to stack employment odds in their favor at a time when the college grapevine says jobs are nearly impossible to find. If they can’t land a job in mechanical engineering, they can always point to that English degree on their resumes instead.

But others, like Pooneh Hendi of Anaheim Hills, are motivated less by the need to work after graduating than they are by the ideals of being a Renaissance man--or woman.

“As much as I love science, I love humanities too,” said Hendi, 24, who studies biochemistry and linguistics at UCLA and intends to go to medical school. “It gives me a chance to activate other areas of my brain.”

In some colleges and universities around the country, administrators tout dual-degree programs as tools that produce well-rounded people. The resulting academic heavyweights can solve differential equations handily one minute and quote Marcel Proust the next.

One-fifth of the 1,000 engineering students at Washington University in St. Louis, for example, are going after second bachelor’s degrees in Japanese, music, business and other subjects.

“Intellectual curiosity should be encouraged,” said Allen Schwab, director of the campus’ dual-degree program. Such students are “making connections between fields that the rest of us are missing.”

Educators say the growing trend of interdisciplinary studies in universities contributes to double majors’ popularity. Mathematicians work with computer scientists to land sought-after contracts and grants; political scientists cooperate with economists.

“Sciences at the graduate level used to be so specialized,” said Tina Arth, senior counselor in physical sciences at UCI. “Now there is a lot more interaction going on (between fields).”

Chemistry and biology make up one of UCI’s popular combinations. Arth said a growing number of biology students add chemistry to their repertoires to make them stand out during competition to get into medical schools. Even if they don’t get into medical school, the two degrees make them more competitive in the job market.

Sometimes the double major can be a solution for mixed-up teen-agers who aren’t sure about their goals.

UCI senior Lilly Chow remembers having a “grand scheme” before her freshman year that she would major in English and history.

Chow, now 21, went astray when she tasted the tempting but noncommittal lifestyle of a student with no declared major.

“Basically,” she said, “I was puttering about and getting quite confused.”

She thought about majoring in German or Italian language. But at the same time, she was active outside of class in Asian American student movements at UCI to bring more non-Western teaching to the campus.

“I’d make speeches to convince people about the importance of Asian American subjects, yet I felt guilty” about studying mostly European themes, she said.

When Chow signed up for a literature course and another class in feminist theory, it finally clicked: She could combine her love for language with her interest in literature that focused on ethnic and gender issues. She decided to study comparative literature and women’s studies.

Now she is applying to graduate schools in comparative literature to become a professor. “I’m extremely happy,” Chow said.

Smith, the quadruple major at UCI, hopes his four science majors will get him into a good medical school.

At age 43, Smith doesn’t like being known as a perpetual student. But since he’s soon to have seven degrees under his belt, it’s hard to avoid the label. Last quarter, he took six classes, spending about 40 hours a week in courses or labs.

He expects to graduate a few units shy of 300; it takes a minimum of 180 course units to graduate from UCI.

Smith, of Huntington Beach, is no stranger to college. He first graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1976, and then got a master’s degree in 1980 in electrical engineering from Cal State Fullerton. USC gave him a third degree in 1987.

Hughes Aircraft in Fullerton employed him as an aerospace engineer until 1991, when he got laid off and received his 15-year service pin the last day. But losing the job was actually “like a 500-pound gorilla off my back,” he said.

While at Cal State Fullerton in the 1970s, Smith had dreamed about going into medicine but decided against the rigorous classes because of his disability. He is deaf in one ear, and seriously hearing impaired in the other.

At UCI, he buys transcribed class notes to keep up with courses, which often take place in crowded lecture halls. UCI also provides him with a notetaker who types what his professors say, and the words appear on the screen of a laptop computer that Smith reads in class. The tools help him juggle everything from Fubini’s theorem to Ohm’s Law. He has financed his extended education with money saved from his engineering career.

By the spring, however, his amazing four-year undergraduate career at UCI will finally draw to a close. He intends to apply to medical schools in the University of California system.

“I love learning and want to keep on learning things throughout my life. But no matter what people think,” Smith said with a laugh, “I don’t want to spend my whole life doing this.”

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Declaring Double UCI has seen a steady increase in the number of undergraduates who declared two or more majors within the past five years, although the number dipped slightly in 1994. At Cal State Fullerton, the numbers of those with double majors or minors has dropped along with enrollment. UC IRVINE:

1994 Enrollment-- 13,597

1994 Double majors-- 703

CAL STATE FULLERTON:

1994 Enrollment-- 18,828

1994 Double majors-- 1,186

Source: UCI analytical studies, Cal State Fullerton analytical studies; Researched by ALICIA DI RADO / Los Angeles Times