<p>Economic major with a Global studies minor. I have the stats to get into WP Carey Business School at ASU. Does this sound alright if I eventually want to work for either the United Nations or World Bank? I already know Spanish.. should I add a French minor?</p>
<p>It sounds fine, if they are courses that interest you. I don’t think you need to add a French minor, but if there’s a foreign language you are interested in by all means study it and perhaps spend a term abroad somewhere where it is spoken. French will be fairly easy if you know Spanish.</p>
<p>Hi all.
Alright. So i plan to major in Economics and minor in Global Studies. I was thinking about adding a minor in Spanish and a minor in French as well. However, I am currently in highschool and by the time I complete highschool I will have finished AP Spanish 5. My teacher said I only need like 6 more credits to get a minor in Spanish after the dual enrollment and AP credits are transferred. What do I do? How will I finish my Spanish curicculum? And should I at least do the double minor with the Global Studies/French?</p>
<p>Minors impress HS students and nobody else.</p>
<p>Take Sp & Fr and develop proficiency. Listing that on your resume one day will be x100 better than a spurious line about your “minor(s)”. Xiggi speaks the truth.</p>
<p>Agree. Language minors can be somewhat beneficial in some jobs if you develop proficiency. Other minors are of minimal benefit unless closely related to your field. Unrelated minors can be a good “outlet” to use your brain differently, but are unlikely to add career value. On the latter, I’d think about the benefit of an outlet vs. what else you could do with that time.
My D1 is in ChemE, with minors in Spanish and Music, and is on track to graduate in 3 years due to AP credit. Like the OP may do she started in Spanish IV, so can pick up a potentially helpful minor by just choosing wisely on her electives. Music is a personal passion and a creative outlet. Given that she would play cello and perform in orchestra as one of her ECs anyways, she figured she might as well get the minor. Even though this has little career value, she loves the mental break which then allows her to focus better on engr. Biggest challenge is to schedule courses, and she has overloaded by a couple hours once or twice. Her advisor is supportive because it’s the music that puts her over, and her GPA has not suffered.</p>
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<p>Exactly.</p>
<p>If you are interested in international work, in particular, language skills are invaluable. (And everything doesn’t have to be job-oriented. Education, not vocational training.)</p>
<p>How many threads are you going to start with variations of this question? Minors are not that important, but skills are. Learn the languages, spend time overseas, make the most of opportunities your school offers. (My son spent winter break freshman year interviewing people in Pakistan and India about nuclear disarmament thanks to a grant his school offered.) Do things in the summer that will give you a better idea of what direction you want to take. And take some time to smell the roses - take creative writing or art or philosophy or physics for poets.</p>
<p>Good point… could I develop proficiency though? I’m more interested in the languages themselves rather than the certificate that says “Minor in x”. I want to be trilingual by the time I graduate.</p>
<p>Language courses at a college usually involve the study of literature, history, and culture. If you want language skills per se, there are many ways to acquire them, including immersion classes outside of college, and, of course, spending time in a country where the language is spoken. You can put languages spoken on your resume. Minors don’t really impress. To me, having too many minors may even make you look scattered.</p>
<p>I agree with posters above about smelling the roses. College should not really all about positioning yourself for a career. Rather than all those classes for your minor, take a few language classes, yes, but explore other areas, like history, anthropology, literature,art and music, that will contribute in a broader way to your understanding of people and places.</p>
<p>If you expect to use the language skills in biz, that’s more than having a minor on your resume. Have you looked at the requirements for a minor? Often lots of lit. The proficiency bar can be somewhat low. And you usually don’t get the work-specific lingo.
Xpost</p>
<p>Minors aren’t necessarily pointless. Depending on what the minor is in, it can be a concrete way of demonstrating that you have a particular skill set. If you have elective space and want to do something “unified” with it, a minor can be a good way to go. However, if you don’t quite have space for it or it would cause undue stress, it’s not a huge loss to not have the minor. Play it by ear once you start. I started college planning to minor in international affairs and ended up minoring in computer science. You can even pull things together at the very end - my boyfriend has 3 spots left in his schedule for next semester (his last semester before graduation), and I realized he needs 3 classes for a CS minor, so that’s his plan now.</p>
<p>If it would really only take 1-2 courses to get the minor is, my thinking is: “might as well.”</p>
<p>Are you planning to have THREE minors in college or high school? </p>
<p>I did job interviewing for YEARS and never once considered a student’s minor course of study. I did, however, consider proficiency shown in varying areas. If an applicant was fluent in Spanish, for example, that would have been a helpful asset. Having a minor in Spanish would have been meaningless.</p>
<p>If you want to present proficiency in a foreign language, then find ways to build fluency in the language.</p>
<p>I agree with posters upstream…three minors would really only sound good to a high school student.</p>
<p>***Sorry for the confusion. I am currently on track (in highschool) for a Spanish language minor. Therefore, I wouldn’t have to start from a freshman course in college. I want to start Global Studies and French in college as minors though.</p>
<p>@thumper1 - how did you judge proficiency in various areas?</p>
<p>language proficiency can be estimated through 1° having spent time abroad (preferably one semester, at least one summer) 2° OPI testing 3° certified proficiency (classes in college will be referred to as Elementary; Intermediate, which is the AP level; Upper Intermediate; Advanced with Introductory Lit and Introductory Civ/culture/history; and then if you go to a good college for languages, further classes. There are national proficiency levels, too, with numbers, etc.)
For math, it’s easy to see “how far” you’ve studied - Pre Calc? Multivariable Calculus? etc
Make sure your college offers Advanced/intro to lit/Civ every semester, and further courses every semester too. Many colleges only offer post- upper Intermediate classes in rotation (every other semester, every other year). Ideally to use your French and Spanish professionally you’ll need the advanced language course (both composition and conversation), one literature class, one history class, one contemporary culture class (the last two will be more important for you than literature, but if you don’t know basic literature many French and Spanish people won’t take you seriously. However you don’t need in-depth knowledge, just understanding the names and the basics about the novels/poems/plays since they can be name-dropped by natives just to test you. In addition, they often “reveal” a lot about a country and many are really interesting. History and contemporary culture, however, are a prerequisite to do business.) Then, two Business French/Business Spanish classes. All of this may not be the same classes as for a minor but it would likely require about 6to 8 classes. If you start French in college, you would have 4 semesters + 1 each of contemporary culture + civ + business (+ lit if you can) = 7 classes. So you’d have to take 1 Spanish class starting at upper intermediate, 1 French class, plus your 3 gen ed or potential major classes, every single semester. Do you think you can do it?
Where are you applying? University of South Carolina’s international business program is very good (with very good languages). More selective, the International Business and management program at Dickinson includes a semester abroad (with lots of language classes - very strong for French, and they offer 13 different languages.)</p>
<p>**** Thanks for all your replies!!</p>
<p>@MYOS1634 , I am only a sophomore in highschool so I have time, but I plan to go to WP Carey School of Business at ASU. If i keep my grades consistent as they are now, I would have the stats to recieve direct admission as a freshman. It is both nationally and globally ranked (:</p>
<p>In Germany the Goethe Institute offers an exam called the Sprachdiplom which measures competency. [German</a> examinations - Our examinations - Goethe-Zertifikat C2: GDS - Goethe-Institut ](<a href=“Goethe-Zertifikat C2: Grosses Deutsches Sprachdiplom - Goethe-Institut”>Goethe-Zertifikat C2: Grosses Deutsches Sprachdiplom - Goethe-Institut)</p>
<p>There is a European scale of competency: [Common</a> European Framework of Reference for Languages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages]Common”>Common European Framework of Reference for Languages - Wikipedia) and various tests to measure levels.</p>
<p>Minors mean very little (unless they demonstrate a skill set that is very different from the skill set developed through your major, eg a history major with a minor in computer science). Two minors is ridiculous; three is laughable. You would be FAR better off double-majoring, which shows breadth and depth.</p>
<p>A person doesn’t have to add a minor to become fairly fluent. A minor often requires literature classes in the language. If those aren’t your bag, then just take the 100 and 200 levels and the conversational 300 level courses.</p>