<p>I'm a mechanical/aerospace engineering major at a well-ranked school. I'm trying to decide what minors I should get -- I feel that something like Applied Mathematics, Applied Computing, Engineering Physics, or Materials Science/Engineering would be ideal for getting my dream job at some space exploration company after graduation, but Philosophy or Linguistics or History really appeal to my more humanistic interests. I'm not implying that I would be miserable pursuing an Applied Math minor or anything, I really enjoy that stuff -- I just like the humanities a lot as well. Or should I officially minor in more technical subjects and just take lots of interesting humanities courses on the side?</p>
<p>The only think a Minor is good for is meeting chicks… and none of those options will have any. Might I suggest something in the liberal arts arena?</p>
<p>There is nothing you should minor in. Except in rare cases, minors don’t help you a whole lot when it comes to job prospects. If you want a minor, do it because you are interested in the subject area and then maybe you can spin it into an advantage in the job market.</p>
<p>A minor would help in certain isolated situations. In general they don’t mean much. Companies may look at what classes you have taken or they may not, it just depends on the company.</p>
<p>a minor isnt usually something that you go in trying to get. you take a gen ed and find out you like the subject so you take more classes. before you know it you happen to have enough credits in that department for a minor.</p>
<p>You can list the classes you’ve taken and it will only help you if you’ve taken classes related to the job you’re gunning for, but no a minor generally isn’t going to help.</p>
<p>Well, you shouldn’t major in something you don’t like, but you also shouldn’t major in something that isn’t marketable. You can ask a lot of liberal arts grads how that’s been working out for them.</p>
<p>I tend to disagree. I would say that you should major in what you like, regardless of marketability. Obviously it kind of stinks if your passion is something with a rough job market, but it is your passion, and the point of education is more than just to get a job. It is to better yourself and learn more in areas you are passionate about. Better to just scrape by but love what you do than make a ton of money and hate your life.</p>
<p>Some people do that and are successful, and if you have a solid plan for what you want to do with your degree it may make perfect sense to major in something that isn’t traditionally marketable. And if you have the money, or your parents are willing to front the money, then fine. You’re at worst wasting your own time and money that already exists.</p>
<p>The biggest problem I have is people who take out large amounts of debt to study their passion with no real way to repay it when they graduate. If you want to be a history major you just can’t go to a school that is going to leave you in a large amount of debt. With the job prospects of a non-marketable major even debt in the range of 20-30k may not be responsible. </p>
<p>Unfortunately the reality for a lot of high school graduates is that they will HAVE to take out debt of that magnitude to go to college. I got in-state tuition for three years of my four years, a couple pretty decent scholarships and I’ve still got a little under 25k worth of debt. So if you don’t plan on being able to pay for your college right away either through full scholarships or through parental support (or working for a couple years and saving money) then I still think it’s irresponsible to study your ‘passion’ when you have no real plan as to how you can capitalize on that degree.</p>
<p>Personally I feel that universities have become too driven by industry. I’d push everything practical into trade schools or academies and leave university education - even undergraduate university education - to people who wanted to end up in academia, or industry R&D at worst.</p>
<p>I don’t know if I would go that far, AMT, but I do get the feeling that some universities have started to trend towards essentially becoming 4 year trade schools for some of their degrees. I suppose that has its advantages, but it has some pretty significant disadvantages as well.</p>
<p>I think trade schools are what most people need anyway, so I’m all for Universities becoming closer to them.</p>
<p>It’s really just a different outlook on the purpose of education. I think the majority should be practical career based education, while the minority should be pure academia.</p>
<p>The purpose of education to, you guessed it, educate. Whether or not that is highly theoretical and/or abstract or highly practical and/or concrete is a different story. Universities, in my opinion, ought to stick to the theoretical and abstract stuff and throw in just enough practical stuff to make people useful. If you want a purely practical education, you don’t need a 4 year degree, you need a couple years at a trade school and experience. Both are equally necessary and people ought to do what fits them best.</p>