Hey everyone,
I am a Civil Engineer Undergrad. at UofT, and have been given the opportunity to pursue an Arts & Sciences minor degree on top of my Bachelor’s of Engineering. I have finished my first year recently.
I have given some thought on pursuing an English minor, as that would expand my skills for my future, as I know that writing is an important factor in all work fields.
That said, I would need to take extra courses in the summer, which means extra tuition, and I do not know whether a minor degree is worth the money/stress, and how an English minor compares to, say, a chemistry minor.
And more importantly, will having a minor degree in general separate myself from other graduates who don’t have one when time comes to apply for a job?
Please help!
If you want to work as an engineer, they English minor won’t make any difference and you would be better off just taking courses you like to round out your college experience. Yes, engineers need to know how to write so you will benefit in improving your ability to communicate.
A minor in another areas of science/engineer would make your engineering degree look better but for Civil, you need to look in the job ads to see what types of skills employers are looking for. Maybe something environmental or with sustainability would be good for Civil.
Minors rarely make your degree look better. However, the skills you learn my make you more competitive in some cases. It’s just the official title of “minor” that usually doesn’t matter at all.
I would think the skills you lean in an English minor would be transferable to technical writing as long as said extra courses were geared toward writing. Critical writing (e.g. literary criticism) would be better than creative writing.
That said, takin up your summers means less opportunity for internships, so I’d do all you can to leave your summers open. Internships and the experience they provide are definitely more important to your future job prospects.
Also, just as a general bit of advice, avoid using acronyms like “U of T” in a thread-starting post. No one knows what it means. (Toronto? Tennessee? Something else?) Luckily, it wasn’t important to this discussion.
Agree with everything Boneh3ad said. My son will graduate in civil next semester. Fwiw he was not a writer before college but feels like he has has plenty of opportunity to develop technical writing skills within the scope of his engineering program and feels confident about those skills.
"will having a minor degree in general separate myself from other graduates "
Yes, it may. But not in a positive way. When I was hiring engineers, I wanted the best prepared ENGINEER I could. If getting that minor takes away from taking more engineering classes, then it has a negative impact. I wouldn’t give any more credit for having an English minor (or any other non-engineering minor) as the job I was offering didn’t have a lot to do with English.
Your college requirements usually contain a fair number of non-engineering classes. Use those to explore areas outside of engineering that interest you.
I’d recommend a Technical Communications class or two as elective. I see no advantage to an English minor.