The framing behind "is it OK to major in English at MIT" assumes the school only really does one thing. In practice, most schools branded around a single specialty have real programs on the other side -- the actual question isn't whether it's allowed, it's what specific tradeoffs you're signing up for, and those tradeoffs are different at every school.

MIT: yes, English is a real major -- but you can't actually avoid the science core

MIT has real undergraduate majors in Literature, Writing, and Comparative Media Studies, taught by its actual School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) -- not a token seminar bolted onto an engineering degree. Every MIT undergraduate, including those majors, completes the HASS Requirement: 8 humanities/arts/social-sciences subjects total, including a 3-4 subject "concentration" in one specific field, so a HASS student's own concentration can genuinely be their primary academic identity.

The catch runs the other direction, and it's the part most people don't expect: every MIT student, English majors included, must also clear MIT's science core -- two semesters of calculus, two semesters of physics, one semester of chemistry, and one semester of biology. There's no track that lets you opt out of this because your major is literary studies. If the idea of doing real calculus and physics alongside a literature degree sounds appealing, MIT is a genuine option. If the goal is "study English somewhere without much math," MIT specifically will not deliver that, regardless of your declared major.

Caltech takes this further than any other school on this list

Caltech is the most STEM-branded school in the country, and it genuinely does offer English, History, Philosophy, and Political Science as real undergraduate options, run out of its own Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences. But Caltech's core requirement is heavier than MIT's in both directions at once: every student, regardless of major, completes a full first-year science sequence (physics, chemistry, math through multivariable calculus, a biology course, an introductory programming course) and a substantial 99 units in Humanities and Social Sciences -- 36 in humanities, 27 in social sciences, 36 more from either. A Caltech English major does more hard science coursework over four years than an average engineering student at a school without Caltech's core, and a Caltech mechanical engineering major does more formal humanities coursework than most other engineering programs require. Caltech isn't really a place where a specific major shields you from the other domain -- everyone gets both, heavily, no matter what they declare.

Harvard: real, ABET-accredited engineering, with MIT as a built-in backup

Harvard's John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is a genuine engineering school, not a recent marketing rebrand -- its Engineering Sciences program has held ABET accreditation since 1962, with Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering added as separate ABET-accredited S.B. degrees in 2012-2013. It's smaller and historically less STEM-dominant than MIT, and Harvard's own general education is lighter on required math than MIT's is on required humanities: Harvard's Quantitative Reasoning with Data (QRD) requirement is a single course, not a multi-semester sequence.

The genuine hedge here, and the most concrete answer to "should I worry Harvard's engineering isn't as deep as MIT's": Harvard and MIT run a real cross-registration agreement. As of fall 2024, Harvard College students can cross-register for an unlimited number of MIT courses, with credit counting toward their Harvard degree -- meaning a Harvard SEAS student can, in practice, take actual MIT engineering classes while still graduating with a Harvard degree. This is a specific, checkable option, not a vague "the schools are nearby" assumption -- confirm current registration rules directly with each school's registrar before counting on it, since eligibility details (first-years need a dean's sign-off, no more than half your term's courses can be cross-registered) do apply.

Engineering-branded schools with a real, separate liberal arts college: Georgia Tech

Georgia Tech is the clearest example of an engineering-first institution running a genuinely separate, fully staffed liberal arts college rather than a thin distribution requirement. Its Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts runs six full schools -- Economics, History and Sociology, Literature Media and Communication, Modern Languages, Public Policy, and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs -- offering real bachelor's degrees, not humanities electives layered onto an engineering core. If the goal is a genuinely non-STEM degree at a school built around engineering, this is a stronger structural fit than a school where the "other" option is a handful of humanities GIRs.

The check that matters more than the school's overall brand: is your specific major ABET-accredited

This is the single most concrete thing to verify, and it's easy to skip past because "the school has an engineering program" feels like enough. It isn't. ABET accreditation is awarded program by program, not university-wide -- Princeton and Cornell currently offer the broadest ABET-accredited engineering lineups among the Ivies, while Brown, Penn, and Harvard hold ABET status on a more selective subset of their engineering majors specifically. Princeton, for instance, also runs a separate Engineering & the Liberal Arts track that is explicitly not ABET-accredited, existing alongside its accredited majors at the same school. Don't assume "this university has an engineering school" settles the question -- look up whether your specific intended major, by name, currently holds ABET accreditation, since it's entirely possible for one major at a school to be accredited while an adjacent, similarly-named one isn't.

What actually drives the outcome, beyond the major-vs-brand mismatch itself

Three things matter more in practice than whether your major matches the school's public reputation:

  • Department size and faculty depth in your specific field. A humanities major at an engineering-focused school, or an engineering major at a humanities-focused one, will generally have a smaller department, fewer course offerings, and a narrower faculty roster in that specific field than at a school built around it -- true even where the program itself is legitimate and accredited.
  • Recruiting pipelines are major-specific, not just school-brand-specific. A top engineering-brand school's name helps broadly, but a company running dedicated on-campus recruiting for computer science majors isn't going to have an equivalent pipeline for that same school's English majors, and vice versa -- research the actual recruiting presence in your specific department, not just the university's overall reputation.
  • Cross-registration and consortium agreements are worth checking for specifically, the way Harvard-MIT students actually use theirs -- a real, structural way to access a deeper program in your "off-brand" subject without transferring, though the details and limits vary school to school and shouldn't be assumed without confirming them directly.

What this means for you

  • "Is it allowed" is almost never the real question -- most schools with a strong specialty brand do offer a legitimate program on the other side. The real research task is what specifically that program requires and how deep it actually runs, not whether it technically exists.
  • Check the school's core/gen-ed requirements before assuming your major shields you from the other domain. MIT and Caltech both force real science coursework on every student regardless of major -- if "study humanities with minimal math" is the actual goal, a heavy-core STEM-branded school is the wrong target regardless of whether it technically offers your major.
  • Verify ABET accreditation for your specific intended engineering major, by name, not just "does this school have an engineering program." Accreditation is awarded per-program, and a school can hold it for some majors and not closely related ones at the same institution.
  • If a cross-registration agreement exists between your target school and a stronger program in your field, treat it as a real, usable option -- confirm the current rules directly with both registrars, since eligibility and course-load limits do apply and change over time.
  • Weigh department size and recruiting depth in your specific field as seriously as the university's overall brand. A globally famous school's name doesn't guarantee a deep faculty roster or strong recruiting pipeline in every single department it offers.

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