Physics Professor Paul Dixon of Cal State San Bernardino calls quadruple major Victor Sciortino a pure scholar, "an extremely bright student who enjoys the material and wants to know it all."

Sciortino, who graduated last week with honors in physics, applied physics, computer science and mathematics, says there is much more to his decision to carry eight courses a quarter, when four is a normal load. He slept less than three hours a night for five years.

Sciortino, who wants to be a physics professor, wanted an edge in academia. And he believes got it.

UC Santa Barbara, one of the world's leading physics graduate schools, picked Sciortino from a pool of applicants hailing from more prestigious schools.

Other Inland students say a multiple major on their resume helps them stand out in a challenging job market.

While Sciortino maintained a 3.9 grade point average, he scored less than steller on his graduate school entry exam in physics.

"I worried about that," said Sciortino of Hesperia, who will enter UC Santa Barbara in September. "They must have looked at the research, the honors and the quadruple. They want someone who really knows physics well, and I did well in all the subjects."

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

A multiple major demonstrates discipline, but more students arriving on campus have room in their course schedule to earn the requirements, said Sharon Salinger, associate dean in the Office of Student Academic Affairs at UC Riverside.

The superachievers come with college credits from Advanced Placement exams, or college courses they took in high school or summer school, Salinger said by phone.

For Josefina Ramirez, an undergraduate at UC Riverside, her double major in political science and Chicano studies got her into a Cal State Sacramento fellowship program working in the state Assembly, she said. She earned a grade point average of 3.0.

"When I was interviewing, they said, `We get a lot of poli sci majors. The fact that you were also a Chicano studies major, stood out' " Ramirez, 22, said by phone.

The number of multiple majors has stayed flat at UC Riverside in the past decade and Cal State San Bernardino statistics are inconclusive. At UCLA, 378 undergraduate students enrolled as double majors in fall 1998.

Four years later, 585 students declared multiple majors without a significant increase in student population.

Ramirez wants to become an urban planner. Coming into UCR with credits equal to six college classes enabled her to double major, she said. The Chicano studies major, she said, "reinforced my awareness of community issues and helped me apply that to political science."

Alison Trinidad, the 1998 Corona High School valedictorian, said that she attended Washington and Lee University in Virginia on a print journalism fellowship. Her journalism professors suggested that she and her peers pick up a second major.

"They kind of encouraged it," Trinidad said by phone from her newspaper reporter's desk in Florida. "They said, `How can you be a good reporter if you don't know anything about anything?' " Trinidad, 23, chose Spanish. She had fulfilled most of the university's basic language requirements in high school.

One multiple major trend at UC Riverside is "one major for the student and another one for the parents," Salinger said.

Parents will pressure their child to major in business or biology when the student favors dance, she said.

IN A HURRY

At Cal State San Bernardino, Sciortino is considered an anomaly. Last week, after graduation ceremonies, he presented his final honors thesis to a group of computer science professors.

"I am burnt out. You have no idea," Sciortino said. He fumbled with the keys in his pocket, keys to campus buildings, to research labs where he slept many nights.

Sciortino is a man in a hurry. He talks breathlessly. He could pause for only a few minutes. A computer programming assignment was due at 4 p.m.

Sciortino juggled a 20-hour-a-week job tutoring students with his huge course load. He gained 70 pounds from fast food and little exercise.

He entered college late, at 26, trading $10-an-hour jobs for the promise of a career in research and teaching, he said.

He plans to earn his doctorate by 2007. Most of his colleagues at UC Santa Barbara will be out in five or six years.

What's the rush?

Sciortino is going blind. He was born with enlarged retinas. They are deteriorating behind his thick, dark-framed glasses, he said.

"I've been told that since I was a kid," Sciortino said of his macular degeneration. "That's why I'm rushing," he said, taking so many courses, accelerating his graduate school program, so he'll have an academic foundation.

"If I go blind, I'll have everything I need," he said.