I plan on majoring in Chemical engineering next fall, probably at a SUNY school, but I was wondering how hard it is to fit in a minor (or two!). I really have a passion for French and would love to make it my minor. Also computer science interests me a lot and I’ve heard about how important it can be. Any thoughts? Thanks!
Are you starting with substantial AP credit? My D is doing a math and computer science double major with music minor but she had a year head-start with AP credit, took quite a few credit hours every semester, and is also doing one on-line class this summer.
Also engineering is generally harder to do minors with because the program is usually very prescribed. You can always take some of the classes in French or computer science without doing a minor.
Depends on the school’s definition of minor (number of courses, etc.). For French, it also depends on how much you already know French.
For now concentrate on engineering and take some electives that you enjoy (like French). There’s not much advantage to having a minor (see other similar threads), and the logistics can be tough.
There are several issues with double majors and majors with one or more minors.
- Engineering is a tough program even with a lot of AP credit.
- Your extra major or minor opens the door for a hiring manager to question what is your real career intent?
- I always wanted to hire the best prepared applicant I could find. Those that took the extra major or minor would typically have close to the minimum to get their engineering major degree. Those that didn't have the extra major or minor would have more classes in engineering and were better prepared.
Colleges that I am familiar with have humanities requirements of some sort. Use that to take your French classes but limit yourself to those. Once you are out working, if you still have an interest in French, take some classes then.
You don’t need a minor to pursue a passion. That’s what electives are for. Minors (or dual majors) should be complementary to the major, with sufficient overlap to require few extra classes. For example, engineering+physics, math+comp sci, finance+accounting, etc.
Seems like the whole double-major craze is an ego trip for students that’s not shared by hiring managers.
I know many people on here are saying minors like French won’t matter, but just wondering would your opinion change if it was Spanish or Chinese. Are you dismissing French because it’s a language and you think the study of any additional language would be superfluous or because you believe French, in particular, is not a useful language to learn?
@aaleahberry33, I think people are saying that having completed a school’s formal requirement for a minor is what won’t matter. Being fluent in French or any other foreign language is a separate thing, and nearly everyone would agree it’s a plus to one’s resume.
Gaining skill in a foreign language need not require an official minor in it.
Remember also that the definitions of an official minor (in terms of how many courses, and how many have to be advanced courses) can vary considerably from one school to another. Even within a school, not all departments necessarily offer official minors.
Go the website of one of the colleges that you are considering, and look at the requirements for the major and minors, and see if it is possible to fit it all in, and still graduate on time. I suspect that it wouldn’t be possible, and don’t think that it would be worth spending additional time in college to accomplish it.
I agree with above posters. If you take enough coursework to say “Fluent in French” (or other language). that could be a good thing. A college minor would likely get too cumbersome for course scheduling.
And…for every class you need to take to get a minor, it dilutes your chance to make your major more powerful by either broadening or deepening your engineering knowledge. Employers will likely care far more about the engineering you took than they will about any minor.
Do employers really pass on job applicants just for taking classes outside of their major??? Because that’s freaking awful. People can’t have interests outside of their major? We’re told that college is a time to explore subjects and figure out what you like, and that’s apparently a lie, because you’ll lose job opportunities if you do. Same thing was said about high school and then I see people admonishing applicants for not having a “cohesive story” to their app. So we’re supposed to know what we want to do from ~14 years old and do that, and ONLY THAT, for the next eight years of schooling and then the rest of our lives. No other interests. No foreign languages. No art, no music, no history. Just engineering. All the time.
No. They probably mostly do not care what or how many out-of-major courses you took, unless there is some specific aspect of the job where specific out-of-major courses could be relevant (e.g. CS majors looking to become computer game developers may find knowledge of art, creative writing, and physics useful).
However, if there is space for free electives in your schedule, using a free elective for an extra in-major course may be slightly more likely to help in getting the first job in a major-related field than an extra out-of-major course. But there are plenty of “it depends” based on your academic and professional interests, as well as the specific courses under consideration, so it is not like one can make a blanket statement that applies to all situations.
Of course, courses not in your major and not obviously directly applicable to your major or first job out of school are not necessarily useless. But their usefulness may not be obvious initially, or may be indirect. Examples would be sociology knowledge being applicable to workplace interaction, economics knowledge being applicable to the economic environment where you do work, political science knowledge being helpful to understand political developments around engineering (e.g. cryptography, nuclear power, building development, environmental issues), philosophy / ethics knowledge being useful to understand why people have the political views they have, and art knowledge being useful to understand the aesthetic nature of products and how they influence acceptance in the market.
“Do employers really pass on job applicants just for taking classes outside of their major???” - No. But they prioritize applicants that have some interesting/relevant upperclassman engineering electives. Since engineering has so many required courses, you might not have room in your schedule to do both.
It’s part of the larger cultural obsession with “checking off all the right boxes” on the way to “success” that is also seen in modern competitive admissions.
No, you most certainly shouldn’t skip out on classes that are personally important to you. But I will give a caveat: unless you go to a high-ranked school, the basic requirements for graduating are a notch or two below the basic requirements for being strongly employable. You can go ahead and take French or art or history, and in fact you very much should, but don’t think that just because you meet the requirements to graduate that you can do as you please outside of that.
Degrees tend to be pretty self-serve at most mid-tier schools and so you have to go out of your way to figure out what you should actually learn to have good employment prospects.
Sorry to derail the thread a bit, but does what poster #4 say about minors in engineering hold true for all minors or double majors? Like, say if I wanted to major in electrical engineering with a double major or minor in computer science, mathematics or physics, would employers still view that negatively? I don’t think a student should be punished in employment just because they expanded their knowledge horizon a bit instead of narrowly focusing on one specific field.
Generally speaking, a minor or major that consists entirely (or nearly so) of courses that would be tech electives in the original major is NOT a problem. Just realize that it is highly unlikely that ALL those courses will be of interest to any given employer.
And there is nothing unfair about any of this. No one is being punished, employers have the right to choose their employees. Generally speaking, students only have time to take so many extra courses, and someone who uses those classes to take economics or art will be at a competitive disadvantage compared to someone who technical courses relevant to the job offered.
Some students have lots of AP credits accepted at their college, but that is often not the case. Even those with AP credit should hesitate before committing to a minor. It’s often better to stay flexible and take the extra courses per interests. As an upperclassman, those interest may include some cool extra STEM classes.
Sure. Except that creates a singularly focused arms race that, as I said, reaches all the way back to high school. And excluding interests in favor of preparing for future work for years upon years is not at all a happy way to live. I had to give up the idea of a Spanish minor this semester. Even though it made me happy and taking a break from engineering courses gave my brain a rest. But apparently that’s a good thing, because it would have gotten me passed over in the job market anyway! Bright side to everything!