Didn’t want to hijack the AP thread, but I notice that the idea of the “useless minor” keeps popping up. So, I have to ask, why are minors useless?
I am a freshman advisor and I encourage all but the nursing majors (they have no extra time in their schedules) to think about a minor. Why? because it’s the chance to study another field in more depth. Why is the in depth study of another subject area a useless endeavor? Only because it doesn’t increase marketability in the business world? And while it’s merely anecdotal and not commonplace, I do know people who’ve made careers or gotten feet in the door because of a minor.
Back in the day, at the small LAC I attended, we had to have a minor unless we were double majoring.
In the context of that thread, I think the “minors are useless” theme is if you have a major that is difficult to complete in 4 years, adding a minor that delays graduation is a bad idea.
A minor that results in no extra credits and utilizes the electives in a degree plan (or is required) is not useless in my opinion.
However, If you are the type of person who wants to study a subject more in depth, there is no requirement that this be done in a formal educational setting that costs as much as most universities cost. An intellectually curious person can learn outside of a formal educational setting.
Most college students who I talk to that are double majoring or minuting in something are usually freshmen and occasionally sophomores who are really undecided between the two. By junior year, they seem to settle on one or the other.
I don’t know. I think if it interests you and you have time in your schedule, why not?
My D is in a 2 yr prepharmacy program. She has to take a prescribed number of courses and also a certain number of electives which have to be in Humanities. This first semester she has Bio 1 and Chem 1 with labs and she chose to take German 1. Most other students would take Calc 1 and maybe psychology, but she has credit for Calc 1 with her AP score.
She plans on continuing with German through level 4 and I think she only needs one other class for a German minor so I figure, why not. She might get to do one of her pharmacy rotations or an internship in Germany or Switzerland and being able to understand the language can only help.
Studying a secondary field in some depth is a fine idea. Calling it a “minor” may be a useful bit of marketing, but isn’t really necessary.
I see lots of kids obsessed with double-majoring or accumulating minors. They are often rebelling against the forces in the world trying to narrow them, and maybe negotiating with parents (or with their vision of the adult world) to let them spend at least some time pursuing “childish” interests like literature or drama. They vastly overestimate the impact of double majors or minors on employers, and underestimate the benefits of achieving real depth in one field, whatever it is.
Minors are not useless in and of themselves- but the current vogue for either a double-major or a minor which adds time and expense getting the Bachelor’s degree is crazy IMHO. There are colleges which offer the opportunity to get a BS and Master’s in five years- and yet I know kids at these same colleges struggling to complete just the Bachelor’s in five years due to unnecessary pre-req’s and course sequencing because of the minor or double major.
I interview kids all the time who major in subject X but have done a “deep dive” in another discipline. Call it want you want- but if your college makes getting that minor or second major a costly proposition- ditch it. Just take classes in what you want to study- you don’t need a name for it to “count”.
^Exactly. And by not making it an official minor you can pick and choose the better teachers and more interesting offerings if you like. I both took and audited various history and art history courses which complimented my major very well (basically it was studio art/design/architectural history combo). It wouldn’t have been as interesting a set of courses if I’d had to make them an official minor.
Interestingly Carnegie Mellon’s computer science department requires all majors to have a minor. It can be very closely rated like math or robotics, or it can be music/bagpipe which one kid did. Their thought is that comp sci is an applied science and you should study one thing on the side that could be an application (or just a broadening experience since CS majors tend to be one sided.)
A minor is fine if it is in a subject a student is interested in, but it generally won’t do ton to boost a career unless perhaps it is in a related field. For example an international studies major minoring in a foreign language could be useful but if an accounting major minors in history the minor will not help in the job market (I mention this combo because I did it simply because I enjoy history). A minor is certainly not worth spending extra time/money to complete.
I responded in that other thread bc that theme was so dominate. I agree that an unnecessary minor that prevents graduation in 4 yrs is probably not in the student’s best interest. But some degrees do require a minor and some minors are beneficial toward long-term career goals.
My ds is part of a UG research honors program which requires it be completed as a minor. Since he wants to attend grad school in physics, UG research and the experience/mentoring the minor is providing is not useless.
My dd is looking onto IR/IS programs and a minor in a foreign language (as well as study abroad) is actually required for the degree at many schools.
Fwiw, I would think a minor in Spanish would never be considered useless for a nursing student!
I’d never encourage my advisees to consider a minor or second major if it meant adding to their time in college. College is expensive, and the vast majority of my students are low income/Pell eligible.
In my own world, I have one kid who finished a minor with a nursing major, and I hope it was because she liked the subject. The youngest is considering a minor in a field that she just happens to like to a great deal. She has the space, thanks to AP/DE credits and thanks to a large, 4 year renewable scholarship, she doesn’t need to use them to get done early. That minor will take up all the space she had for electives, however. I don’t think that bothers her as she’d probably use all her electives in the minor field anyway.
@mommdc. I think that’s great that your D aspires to go to level 4 in German while pursuing her PharmD but she will have to do very careful planning to make that happen. Once she starts her P1 year she will not have any choice of class schedule so including German classes may not be possible. I hope her advisor can help make it work for her.
Excellent point, but for my D it was the reverse. She took a bunch of electives in one department just bcos she thought those electives sounded better. Thus, it can go both ways.
Minor is not useless if a goal of the student to have this minor. When D. was selecting her college, she made sure that the place would have a minor in her are of interests.
Minor is useless if it is somehow pushed to the student. I do not know why any college program would do it.
My son’s IR program just required 8 semesters of a language or fluency. I think he still needed more courses for a language major, mostly because Tufts was so recalcitrant about counting anything for a major if it was taken on a study abroad. (Unless it was one of their programs, none of them in the middle east.) I agree Spanish is useful for a nursing student, but you can just say I took X number of Spanish courses at Y level. You don’t have to have a minor.
Or you could simply be a nurse who is fluent in Spanish or a Pharmacist who is fluent in German. That’s what’s important for a nurse- not that you’ve written 50 page papers on Cervantes and minored in Spanish.
Most of my friends got a minor the same way I did- we took a bunch of electives in X subject because it was interesting and then realized we were one or two courses away from a minor and figured “why not?”
It hasn’t impacted my life in any way and I don’t even have it on my CV- but it was still a wonderful experience.
With level 4 German I meant 4 consecutive German courses. So Elementary German 1 and 2, Intermediate German 1 and 2. She should be able to do one per semester in the prepharmacy phase. The Elem courses are 5cr and Interm 3 cr.
For the minor she only needs another 3 cr class that is taught in German, like a culture class. She might be able to fit that in as well or she can take 6 credits of electives in pharmacy school.
But I’m not worried, if she doesn’t have time in her schedule or wants to take another elective that is fine with me.
I was just thinking if she wanted to take four German courses anyway and only needed one more class then it might make sense to complete the minor.