<p>Over the Christmas break, a friend's daughter wanted some advice about how choosing a minor in Business would be viewed by graduate programs in her major field of Classics. I really don't know the answer to that, and want to get some opinions from people familiar with graduate admissions in humanities fields.</p>
<p>My friend's daughter is currently majoring in Classics + International Studies (with a minor in Chinese). She had always planned to go to apply to graduate school in Classics, but is now reconsidering whether she wants to spend 6-10 years working on a PhD and then finding no academic jobs in her field. She thinks would be competitive for a good graduate program, as she's in the honors program at her school, has a high GPA, etc. </p>
<p>However, she wants to keep her options open in case she decides not to go to grad school in Classics. Since she entered school with a lot of AP credits, she has room to fit in a lot of extra courses. Specifically, she's thinking of dropping the IS major (but keeping Chinese) and adding a minor in Business to improve employment prospects. From the IS major, she already has some of the courses she would need for Business (economics, statistics). </p>
<p>She had several questions related to this:
Would a top Classics program look down on her application if she did a minor in business? Her concern was that graduate programs would think she's not quite serious if she veered away from an entirely humanities pathway.
She also considered taking some education courses to become certified to teach Latin in high school. She wondered whether top graduate programs would look down on this, too.
Finally, based on her record so far, she thinks she would be a strong candidate to be recommended for Phi Beta Kappa at her school in her senior year. She wondered whether doing a business minor would take away from the liberal arts emphasis necessary for PBK.</p>
<p>Any opinions?</p>