Hi everyone.
In the last stages of decision making, WPI is still one of my top choices. I’m looking to go into chemical engineering, probably down the biochemical concentration. Anyway, I’m wondering how difficult it would be to pick up at minor in WPI. I know this might seem wacky, but I’d really like to keep up my Español and was curious as to whether this would be feasible at WPI, and, moreover, would it be of good quality? (Obviously, WPI’s focus is not humanities).
Hello,
My daughter attends WPI and is just finishing her freshmen year (chem eng). She has been able to pursue many activities that were unavailable to her in high school and has thoroughly enjoyed her first year of college at WPI.
She is not pursuing a minor in a foreign language but I thought that I would send you a link to their undergraduate catalog for 2015-16.
http://www.wpi.edu/Images/CMS/Pubs-Catalogs-Ugrad/WPI_UGCat15-16_WEB-Final.pdf
There is definitely a minor in Spanish offered (see page 87). Just to let you know WPI requires that every undergraduate student complete a Humanities and Arts Requirement. I believe that six courses in a foreign language would fulfill that requirement.
As for the quality of the courses offered, someone else will have to answer that question. FWIW, I did look up the contact Professor’s ratings on rate my professor and they were quite high.
Good luck with your decision!
Thanks for the help. I knew I had seen that document somewhere, but I couldn’t seem to find it again. It was very helpful!
Yes, no problem getting a minor in Spanish and it will help you fulfill the Arts and Humanities requirement. So it is a win-win. My son didn’t take Spanish but liked the professors he had for all his liberal arts courses including German.
A word of advice. Taking classes in something (like Spanish) that is outside of the area of your major in in engineering is very satisfying and highly recommended.
However, be careful about doing it as a minor. You need to check and see how many classes it will be to get that minor. If the classes double count as your minor and toward your general ed requirements, then the better. Don’t shortchange your engineering preparation. As an engineering manager (now retired), I was always looking to hire the best prepared college applicants. That meant that I was hiring people that many more than just the minimum number of classes for their major.
You can many times satisfy your desire to study something outside your major without having to minor in it.
WPI alum (recently graduated) here. I was talking to my advisor about minors and he told me they were trying to push people away from minors in engineering to concentrations if the equivalent exists. So instead of doing say ECE with minor in robotics they would want you to do ECE with concentration in robotics. Obviously if you want to minor in Spanish this wouldn’t affect you but its something to keep in mind. Also no more than 3 courses can count towards both your major requirement and your minor. So if you were to use Spanish as your minor then you would not be able to use the Spanish sequence in order to fulfill your Humanities and Arts requirement. Hope this helps.