<p><em>If you don't want to read the whole thing, the whole question is in one paragraph below.</em></p>
<p>Hi all, I'm a regular poster here on CC and I have a dire question on my schedule... To this point, I have been planning my classes according to a two-year plan I devised because I intended to obtain double minors in French and Korean in addition to my major in Sociology. However, I've been finding out that this is too inflexible and I can't take classes I actually want to try out, like Italian. </p>
<p>First I was thinking about dropping one of my language minors to take on a Public Policy minor, but then I thought about scrapping the whole "minor" idea in general and simply taking a couple classes in each of those subjects.</p>
<p>SO, MY QUESTION IS THE FOLLOWING: Does it matter much if I'm merely taking classes in what I'm interested in, vs. obtaining formal minors in the subjects (and as I think of it, getting formally recognized for my knowledge in the subjects)? </p>
<p>Many people have told me it doesn't matter what I minor in... Even what I major in. </p>
<p>My career prospects are at this point very broad as well and I just want to steer myself in the right direction.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard, I’ve learned that minors are only useful in a few cases:</p>
<ol>
<li>They are directly applicable to the job/grad school you’re applying to.</li>
<li>The person reading your resume is actually a big fan of whatever you’re minoring in.</li>
</ol>
<p>Otherwise, a minor doesn’t play too big of a role in anything else other than for your own interest. If you’re applying for a job that requires Korean/French then all they are looking for is the person most fluent in Korean/French, regardless of a minor or not.</p>
<p>I wrote a nice post a while back explaining my thoughts on the correlation between majors and careers. I’ll try to find it if I can, but I basically said that school and careers are suppose to be separate entities in your life. You go to school to learn and study for the sake of learning because stuff you learn in school is mostly inapplicable to real life. Getting a job is a different thing altogether that doesn’t relate to your studies in school.</p>