I was fortunate enough to pass a ton of AP classes in high school to be able to have room in my college career to declare a minor alongside my B.S. I attend a small school. I came in with the impression that getting classes would be easy as there’s less competition for classes- I was wrong. Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that adding a stats minor is a stressful experience. I need to take three different classes before I graduate (e.g Stat400, Stat 350, Stat 403). There’s room in my schedule for ALL of them (plan to average about 14 units per semester w/out a minor from the start of my junior year to the end of my senior year to graduate). However, each class is only offered over one calendar year (e.g STAT400 only has one section offered in fall, STAT 350 only has one section offered in Spring, STAT 403 only has one section offered in Fall). I’m currently trying to take a stats class concurrently with my major classes right now (Fall semester of junior year), but it’s at a horrible time- on Mondays I’m in three different classes (2 science labs and the stats class) for eight hours with a hour break. It’s exhausting and I’m a bit stressed as I need to be really on my game for the 3 hour labs that surround the stats class. It’s difficult for me to tell if future stats classes will interfere/continue to be at inconvenient times in the future as I don’t know when/what time my major classes would be.
I was wondering if anyone else has been in my shoes and/or could kind of gage how significant a minor actually is. I feel like some of the coursework in the Stats minor are topics that I could teach myself on the side (e.g learning R programming language).
Am I babying myself for considering to opt out of the minor? Currently it seems like the costs of this minor outweigh the benefits. I desired to take it to add some uniqueness to my college résumé. I think I might be better off pursuing opportunities through my school’s undergraduate research office or attempt to find a related internship- thoughts on that?.
Why are you taking a Stats minor? What benefit do you think it will have? Do you plan to go to grad school?
Keeping up your GPA is very important! What is your major?
A minor means just about nothing to employers and very little even in grad school admissions. The only value is the classes you take and the knowledge or skills you gain - if the trouble is not worth the value you get personally, absolutely drop the minor.
Many minors are not worth the effort, but stats is an exception. Stick it out if you can.
What is your major?
Is taking the stats classes that interest you, without getting a minor, a possibility?
What aroundhere said. If it’s threatening your GPA it is absolutely not worth it.
Major is Environmental Science. If I could start over again, I think I’d pursue environmental/civil engineering as I’m interested in land use development. I am interested in grad school but I’m pretty ignorant on getting there and what I would study.
@staybased1 if you are considering grad school then keeping your GPA up is really important, more important than a minor most likely.
Grad school applications are usually helped by having more than the minimum math. But grad school admissions is never for an undecided area of study - if you don’t know what you would study, why do you want to go?