@Madison85, not sure, but it might be a possibility.
The summer after first year she is planning to work (at a local pharmacy) and study for PCAT.
Then when she is in the pharmacy program she has to do intern hours. So she will probably do those during summers, maybe some research as well? Not sure what opportunities will come up.
I don’t know if we could afford a summer study abroad program, but if she could set up an internship with a company close to one of my relatives in Germany we would only have to pay for her flight.
Does she get the Pell grant? If so, she could apply for the Benjamin Gilman study abroad scholarship. Check out the study abroad website at her university to search for scholarships. Also, some study abroad companies offer small scholarships as well, such as CIEE: http://www.ciee.org/study-abroad/germany/
Summer after 2nd year (before 1st year of pharmacy school) could be a good time for study abroad since she will be further along in her German classes, and will be done with all of her pre-pharm coursework. A great time for a new experience before starting the intense 4 -year PharmD program (and possibly plus 1-2 years of residency if she doesn’t want to do retail after graduating).
It’s hard to assign value to a minor as sometimes people can end up in fields unrelated to even their major (eg an art history major could end up in med school.)
“Or you could simply be a nurse who is fluent in Spanish or a Pharmacist who is fluent in German.” or MD who is fluent in Spanish and has some fluency in other languages and…surprise…you do not need to have college minor for that, unless you absolutely want to. If you place as a freshman into higher level of language, like third year or so, one semester may be enough to take a Medical Spanish while at Med. School and you may be all set to take care of Spanish speaking patients.
“the nursing majors (they have no extra time in their schedules)” - this is surprising, most pre-meds have an extra time and in fact most pre-meds around my D. graduated with some combo of major(s) / minor(s), including my D. while one of her pre-med friend graduated with the triple majors. Why? Again, for one reason - Why not?
Actually my D. told me numerous times that her Music Composition minor has helped her a lot. It was great R&R and she had such a fun recording her own music on the real recording equipment in the real recording studio and having her peace played at the concert by one of the music majors. She would never ever had a chance for these fun experiences if she did not have a Music Minor. She would never develop ability to sing in duets either without any type of voice coaching. And you know what was the most common topic in her Medical Schools interviews? Music! All of it, from the classical to discussing of her favorite Chopin peace to the pop bands. Interviewers are people too, they get tired of the same over and over, she was their break, relief from boredom…and several acceptances followed…
I have hired someone based on their minor, and long ago my DW was hired based on her second major (coincidentally in both cases the extra courseload was in math). In both cases the HR person passed the resume based on the major matching the requisition. I agree whole-heartedly it’s not worth taking an extra semester/year to do it.
Nursing IS a major- with its own requirements, leading up to taking the nursing boards after graduation. Doctors don’t take the boards after undergrad.
[sigh] If I had a unicorn for every medical student all set to take care of Spanish-speaking patients after his or her Medical Spanish class, I would have about as many unicorns as I have now.
Some minors are so closely related to the major that it only takes one or two extra classes to get it. I went to school with a lot of guys who were double majoring in water and soil (‘mud majors’). To get degrees in chem and bio was only a few extra classes, so almost all mud majors just took the extra classes. I do think an employer might like to see those traditional majors of bio or chem.
My daughter is currently majoring in art history and to get minors in history or religion only takes a few extra classes. She’s also almost finished a minor in theater as she was majoring in it and then switched, so would only need 3 more classes. In the end, will it matter? Will an employer really care that she took 3 extra history classes? If she wanted to get a minor in an unrelated area, like bio or chem, that would take many more courses and probably extra semesters.
Minors can be useful if you use them to back up your major. I’m an urban planning major with a geography minor, and that minor is aimed completely at taking classes in Geographic Information Systems software. Not only will GIS skills make me more attractive as an urban planner, urban planning is such a similar field to geography that having GIS skills would qualify me to apply for jobs as a geographer if I were so inclined.
A semester of Spanish, is not nearly enough, though obviously it would be nice to have the med school specific vocabulary. I lived in Germany 5 years. After 4 years I thought it was time to have a baby. I thought I spoke fluent German, but I discovered a world of vocabulary I had not learned yet. It wasn’t hard to get up to speed, but strollers, babyseats, Caesarian sections, breastfeeding, diapers, pacifiers, all those words had to be learned!
I had a sort-of-brother, who came to live with my family when he was 16. He grew up in Chile, and was a native Spanish speaker; he spoke only pretty rudimentary English when he came here. After 18 months of high school, four years of college, and 18 months of business school, his English was fine. He had a job in New York, and did business regularly, but not constantly, with companies in South America. And he discovered that, although he was a native Spanish speaker, his vocabulary was that of a 16-year-old, and he had hardly any business vocabulary at all. He had to book-learn the Spanish terms for everything he did, and he never felt completely comfortable having business negotiations in Spanish.
Minors aren’t useless if they are complementary…for mine it was business and English (business obviously for the hook for a kid who likes to write) and Environmental Science and Geography (taken also for the GIS primarily). 3 is considering a minor in Construction management (he’s an engineering major).
Minors can be used to extend a field of study into other areas. I majored in Accounting and minored in Computer Science. This combination put me into into a different category than the typical MIS major at the time. Some companies like the idea of hiring an Accounting to run their financial systems instead of a IT guy. I am really an IT guy and my minor gave me enough background to work in the field, but my degree says Accounting. There are several major/minor combos that create a similar synergistic effect (there is an buzz word from my business classes!)
I really liked Psychology and was only a course away from getting a minor. I chose not to get Psychology minor since combo did not add value to my degree even though the extra Psych courses did.