Your school may or may not require you to have one. These days, most don’t. However, people pursue them mostly because they want to study a subject in more depth. You can always just take more courses in a particular subject, but a departmental minor will make sure you have at least an acquaintance with the most important ideas in the field.
Since it’s not always clear how a major plays in the employment world, it’s not always a good idea to think a minor makes you more employable. Take a minor because you want to study a field. My youngest, for example, is a Math and Computer Science major. She really likes art, so she’ll be pursing and art minor, not because it’ll look good on a resume, but because she wants to study art in more depth and still get the breadth a minor would provide.
Colleges require you to complete a certain number of units to earn a diploma. Courses come in 3 flavors (GE, major, and “other”) and are assigned varying number of units (eg 4 units). Minors arise from the “other” and typically require about half the number of units that a major requires. So for example if you’re a math major that requires 15 courses (60 units), a psych minor may require 7 courses (28 units) with some of those psych courses/units being LD, some UD. Students do a lot of things with those “other” units. Some students complete minors out of interest, some to complement their major, some may be looking for an easy “A” as their other courses in a term might be very, very difficult, etc. Most students do not earn a minor and take “other” courses maybe out of interest, but also as fillers to create tight schedules (on campus by 10, done by 1 or 2PM) as opposed to having to wait around until say 4PM for some req minor course. “Other” courses are also taken to maintain FT status as FT status is generally required to receive aid. I’ll guess there might be some school that requires a minor, but generally it’s not required.
a minor is useless (that is true…imo)
but if you like stuff outside your major take those classes as electives.
say you like politics take a bunch of cherry picked classes in that subject.
My D recently considered a university - University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire - that stated, on their website, that most of the LAS majors REQUIRE a minor - or a double-major. The exception was a few interdisciplinary majors offered.
I’m assuming the requirement had more to do with making sure students received a “well-rounded” and holistic educational experience, as well as making a humanities or straight science major more versatile for employment skills…
I personally like the idea. She’s decided not to apply there, but I’ve told her she should consider having a minor (or double-major) no matter where she attends.
A great living can be made “in the seam” between two subjects. Having two skill sets is not a waste. A minor in something like business, stats, CS, info systems, public policy, etc can add skills that are quite useful. I personally have parlayed a business degree with the equivalent of a CS minor into a very successful career, and the blend of the two skill sets has served me well. I have noticed that a Bio and math or Bio and statistics combo seems to have some muscle in the job market these days, for example. Of course you should not delay graduation to complete a minor.