Seminars

◈ 주   제: When Free to Choose Two: Determinants and Outcomes of Double Majors in College

◈ 발표자: 이예솔 (석박통합과정 9학기)

◈ 일   시: 2024년 6월 4일 화요일 11:30~12:30

◈ 장   소: 우석경제관(223동) 504호

◈ 주   관: 경제학부, 경제연구소 한국경제혁신센터, SSK, BK21 

◈ 초   록

With a growing number of students pursuing higher education, the choice of college major has become an increasingly important margin for both the individual and the society. Double majoring has emerged as an important strategy to achieve this goal. However, there is very limited understanding of students’ double major choice. This paper fills the gap in the literature by providing the first comprehensive analysis of double major choice, studying both the features of the major combinations as well as the characteristics and academic outcomes of the students who choose them, exploiting the institutional feature of College of Liberal Studies (CLS), Seoul National University (SNU), which offers a program where students choose any two majors from more than 70 majors available at SNU. We can get five main findings from the preliminary analysis. First, there is a large mismatch in department size. Next, there is a significant gender gap and admission field gap in combinations. Third, Major1 & 2 characteristics tend to be negatively correlated (complementary). Fourth, conditional on gender & admission field, Freshman Math GPA seems to matter when choosing a major combination. Finally, STEM & non-STEM major combination is negatively associated with GPA and Major GPA at graduation when students studied non-science track in high school, but it works oppositely for the science track.