<p>I'm a electrical engineering major, and am thinking about minoring in cs, math and physics. Is it a good idea? Has anyone done that before?</p>
<p>That must be crazy, but I like the way you challenge yourself. But I heard(not sure) that the Department of ECE doesn’t technically support DOUBLE MAJORING in EE and CE. SO I don’t know if they will approve your minor-CE plan. Good luck anyway.</p>
<p>Im assuming that youre going to be a freshman next year? If so I think that you are completely underestimating how difficult ECE is at Illinois. It is believed to be the second most difficult major on campus behind to Aero. Unless you have a huge head start with AP classes and can effectively “skip” a year of general technical and elective classes like math, physics and history, then Im fairly sure you will not have time for 1 minor let alone 3.</p>
<p>Alanthestrong: I’m planning to minor in cs, not ce. And vigilient, i’ll be a freshman this fall, and the reason i want to minor in those three disciplines is:
cs: I can take all cs courses as ece technical electives and get the minor.
Physics and math: I’ll just have to take two more classes in each to get those minors.</p>
<p>Are you in engineering too? My schedule for this fall is pretty heavy. How do you advise me to pace myself? Because I’ve heard people regretting over-burdening themselves.</p>
<p>Im an aero engineer.</p>
<p>It really depends on your work ethic I guess, Illinois engineering is difficult, more difficult than I imagined when I hit my soph year. Unless you tested out of the usual curriculum for freshman, (chem 102/103, rhet 105, ge 101, math221/231, eng 100) you wont have any trouble with course load. Any freshman can handle it.</p>
<p>There really isnt pacing, do you homework on time, plan accordingly so you have enough time to study for exams when you have 3 in one week, and work hard. </p>
<p>Best advice I can give you is to not under estimate the exams, I had to completely change my study habits when I found out how difficult some classes can be and how much of your class grade depends on those exams.</p>
<p>thanks Vigilent. I’m very excited to go there, and I don’t want to lag as for me academics come first and everything follows :)</p>
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<p>pffft whatever. everybody likes their own brand.</p>
<p>OP: I’d suggest seeing if you can handle one major first before trying to load up on all of those minors. College probably will be harder than you expect!</p>
<p>If you find that you can handle other courses alongside your required coursework for EE, I’d recommend sticking to one extra subject and going beyond the min. requirements for it. Justing taking 2 extra courses in 3 subjects sounds kind of lame.</p>
<p>Just curious, why do you want to get minors in all of these subjects?</p>
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<p>I’ll add to this. Let’s say that during your studies in EE you take an interest to semiconductor devices. It would then be smart to take a couple of foundational physics courses relating to the subject–courses in quantum physics, solid state physics, or statistical mechanics. It wouldn’t be very smart or useful to weasel on by and take the easiest courses you can to fulfill a physics minor. You won’t get much out of your extra studies that way.</p>
<p>It makes total sense Silence, and three minors sound lame, true. And for your curiosity, I like math and physics very much, but I can use my electives to gain a cs minor more effectively. So I don’t want to compromise cs for math and physics. But then I researched and found out I don’t have to take many more classes to get my minor in both math and physics. But yet, being a jack of all isn’t what I want to do, so as you said, I’ll stick with cs… but still take all interesting physics classes :)</p>
<p>By the way, I want to go to a grad school afterward. Do multiple minors look good on the application, or a single with going beyond the requirements? </p>
<p>Also, I enrolled myself in the “Leadership Certificate” program. Do you think that will help? Is it a good idea or just a waste of time?</p>
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<p>I think what you should do is focus on the requirements for your degree first, and then later add in extra studies in other subjects in your junior and senior years. This is good for two reasons:</p>
<p>1) You may find that you won’t have time to do extra studies. Focusing on the requirements first allows you to graduate on time.</p>
<p>2) Even if you think you already know what you are interested in (this is pretty rare though–I didn’t have a clue when I started), it may be the case that your interests will change throughout your 4 years in undergrad. The EE required curriculum forces you to study a little bit in different areas of the field (EE is a vast subject), and by taking the courses, you should get an idea of what you are interested in. Once you know what you are interested in, you can tailor your out-of-major electives to your interest.</p>
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<p>I’m no whiz on the graduate admissions process, but I imagine that graduate schools would prefer that you come in already knowing what area you’d like to study. A single one going beyond the requirements related to your area of study would be more impressive than churning out a few minors just to have them. </p>
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<p>I don’t know anything about it.</p>
<p>Thanks. I’ll focus on just ee for now, and will worry about everything else later if I have time. :)</p>
<p>You would be doing yourself a big favor if you took just a few graduate level courses instead of getting even one minor. Minors do not impress employers or grad schools. There’s barely any extra work involved in obtaining them (as you stated) so even if they ostensibly sound impressive, anyone who is actually familiar with them (i.e. employers, grad schools) will think you unnecessarily sacrificed depth for breadth (and very little of it). I’m in EE going into the device physics area. Quantum mechanics and condensed matter physics are pretty much a must in this area and it would be only one more 3 hr course for me to get the physics minor. I’m not gonna bother – no one’s going to care in the end and I’d rather spend a semester abroad, do an internship, graduate early, or take 500-level courses. All of these will help more.</p>
<p>The leadership certificate (I assume this is that i-program thing) is what you make of it. I went to one of the i-programs (free stay at a pretty nice hotel) and did not bother again because I wasn’t impressed by the quality of the people in it (it draws from all of UIUC; the non-technical majors have fairly low admissions standards here…).</p>
<p>Lol sorry to be blunt but you are either nieve or arrogant. EE at U of I is a serious challenge. Unless you are a super genious or book rat, you will have trouble managing ee by itself without any minors. 3 is pretty much unheard of and not worth the pain.</p>
<p>GShine: Yea, I think I’ll just stick to one minor, and surprisingly it’s not one of the above. I’ll probably go with a minor in Tech&Management or just a plain, business minor.
And, as you said, the leadership thing sounds pretty vague. I’ll be better off doing research and internships. Thanks for the advice brother.</p>
<p>UIUCfinest: Lol, my diction would most definitely suggest that I’m not arrogant at all. I’m certainly not as knowledgeable as you current students, and that’s the reason I’m seeking your advice.</p>
<p>I’m very grateful to you all for advising me what to do. It certainly helped a lot. :)</p>