What is the difference between minors, concentrations and certificates?
Different schools have different systems and nomenclature, so there’s no single answer to that question, @“Drew Up”
I’ll take a stab at answering the question. I agree that the nomenclature differs across colleges and universities, but here’s how the terms were used at the universities I attended and taught at.
A MAJOR is the academic discipline in which you are likely to take the largest number of courses, say 10-15 on a quarter system. Every college has specific requirements. This would likely make up about 35-40% of your total credit hours earned (different percentages at different colleges). On your resume you might report your degree as, say, BA Economics, University of Mirabella. Economics would be understood to have been your “major.”
A MINOR is cohesive set of courses, typically within a single specific academic discipline. You could major in economics, and minor in political science, for example. My son majored in econ and had no minor but probably would have minored in political science if he hadn’t spent a year abroad. He needed one more polisci course for that to be a minor. I don’t recall for sure but I think he needed 6 quarter-long courses to be credited with a “minor.”
A CONCENTRATION is sometimes used as a synonym for a major but is more often used to define a specialization within a major. For example, someone might major in art, with a concentration in painting. Or major in business with a concentration in supply chain management. Or major in history, with a concentration in modern European history.
A CERTIFICATE is usually a set of courses from several major fields or disciplines but in which the content is focused thematically across the fields. Say a student majors in political science or history but wants to focus on a region of the world. The student might graduate with a degree in polisci or history, plus a certificate in Asian Studies. To satisfy the requirements for that certificate, the student would likely have taken 2+ years of a single foreign language (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, Korean), as well as several regionally focused courses, e.g., history, economics, geography of China (or Japan or SE Asia, etc).
Nice summary, @mackinaw
I graduated from college with a major and a concentration. My school didn’t have minors, so a concentration was the equivalent of a minor.
What was your concentration in? Agree with @mackinaw that a concentration is typically a subspecialty within a major, as opposed to a minor which is typically in another subject, even if it is related to the other major.
Harvard doesn’t use the terms major and minor. They use “concentration” for what most places call a major and “secondary concentration” for minor. Thus, a person who is say a Physics major at H would be called a “Physics concentrator.”
Well leave it to Harvard… lol