Hey guys, I am a recent admittee at UChicago, definetely majoring in Physics. I have some plans on minors, though, that are raising question marks in my head. I was planning to minor in Computer Science and German. I am certain that CS will be useful for my future, and German, as useless as it may be for my future as a Physics researcher, is a great interest that I want to study for the sake of studying. I just saw, though, that in UChi you can only do 48 courses throughout your Undergraduate carrer. That would leave me with something like 4 electives… would it be worth it, in any of you guys’ opinion? If not, how would you advise me to continue German study? I already plan to self-study Italian and Spanish, so am reluctant to leave german as a self study
Hope I was not too confusing! 
First off: it’s good to see you thinking about how you’ll plan out your four-year schedule so early! And it’s good to see STEM majors (like myself) plan to add humanities/language courses to their schedules. Doubtless it will change and morph as you go through college, but you’ll have a better understanding of how each course you take plays into your larger goals.
This may or may not be true for you, but in general, I think the biggest mistake students here make is that they feel the need to fit as many of their courses into some university-endorsed major or minor program. Consequently, students end up taking some courses they’d rather not take, only because the courses are part of the major or minor program. Furthermore, students feel pressured to gain the departmental endorsements on their transcript because they feel their study in that subject will be invalidated otherwise. The truth is that nobody besides you will care about your minors, in so far claiming fluency in German or Intermediate level programming experience on your resume is just as or more effective for securing jobs and internships. Graduate schools will look through every course on your transcript, so departmental recognition in the form of a major or minor is insignificant and redundant - if you were 1 or 2 courses away from a major or minor, the admissions committee won’t care, especially if you took higher level courses that perhaps didn’t satisfy departmental requirements. The majors and minors you earn are only important insofar as they satisfy your need to feel validated bureaucratically. So if that’s important for you (which it can be, and there’s no shame in that), then the minors may be worth it. But otherwise, take the courses you want to take in the areas of German and Computer Science without concern for the minor requirements.
tl;dr
Treat everything not part of your major and the Core as elective space, and don’t feel pressured to complete the minors. If the minors happen organically because you wanted the courses that satisfy the minor, then do that. But if satisfying the minor means making a choice between a class you really want and a class you don’t care about, then the minor may be doing more harm then good.