<p>Does what you minor in matter to your employers or to grad schools? </p>
<p>I'm majoring in civil engineering and I'm thinking about a few different minors.</p>
<p>Considering in this order:</p>
<p>1) Geology: Anyone ever majored or minored in this? How did you like it? I'd like to do this because Hydrogeology sounds interesting and it would give me the option to go to grad school for it.
2) Environmental Engineering: Very closely related to my major and would only take a couple classes to add.
3) Management: This doesn't sound very exciting to me but seems like it would be useful. Would this look good to employers since as a civil engineer I will most likely end up managing projects or workers. This is were my main Q is. Will a company care what I minored in? If not then I don't plan to minor in this.</p>
<p>How often do people do double minors? Geology and Management don't don't really over lap into my major so I don't know if I would have time to do both. (Geology has a couple classes that count toward major) </p>
<p>You’ll need a graduate degree for most jobs in water resources. Focus your efforts on getting to know profs who you might be interested in doing research (grunt work) for. Most large schools have opportunities for undergrads to get good experience. My on campus work experience got me a solid internship last summer and has also impressed a few employers during interviews.</p>
<p>Minors are worthless as far as impressing anyone.</p>
<p>However, minoring in something you like as a hobby or you can apply to your major will be a leg up even if your employer or grad school could care less about it.</p>
<p>I was also wondering about the worth of a minor. Im majoring in Civil engineering and could get a structures minor by taking one or two extra classes. Would getting the minor help for getting into any graduate schools? Maybe it is only worth something if I were to get my masters in structural engineering…</p>
<p>What if you’re in chemistry, physics or com sci, and you take a lot of math. Those 3 majors are all very theoretical, and math provides a good basis.</p>
<p>Pursuing a minor for financial reasons is almost always a terrible idea. In very rare cases, it works to your advantage if the employer thinks the extra knowledge will be beneficial or in even rarer cases (I’d say never) when the employer is looking for someone with that specific knowledge (in that case, they’d find someone who majored in that field).</p>
<p>To make things redundant, if the employer is looking for someone with knowledge in what you minored the employer will hire someone who majored in that field; if the employer is not looking for someone with knowledge in what you minored more than likely you will not get hired (unless the employer thinks he/she will get significantly more out of your knowledge).</p>
<p>Reasons to obtain a minor:</p>
<ul>
<li>Personal improvement.</li>
<li>Intellectual curiosity.</li>
<li>Bragging to your relatives/friends/random people on the street.</li>
<li>Acquaint yourself with a field you might study later on.</li>
</ul>
<p>^ Well, there are a few jobs that are interdisciplinary. Still, I agree with the consensus that doing things like minoring to improve job prospects and earnings potential is a bad idea. Specialization inside the major discipline would likely be better in that case.</p>
<p>As an undergrad, I did basically a “dual” (not double) major in math and computer science. I do not think I would have been offered as many software positions if I just had a minor in CS. For one, half of the minor were “pick any CS course” so I could have picked a few CS courses that brought no value to the industry.</p>
<p>Doing a “concentration” (which was more than a minor) opened more doors for me because I personally believe that you need some senior-level courses in that 2nd area to really be able to market it…and that will most certainly take more than a minor.</p>