If you’ve looked into college academics at all, chances are that you’ve seen the word “minor” floating around.
So what is a college minor? Is it something useful or worth pursuing? How much work is it?
In this article, we go through all the important things you need to know about a college minor before considering one.
What Is a College Minor?
A minor is essentially dipping your toe into another subject area beyond your major. Officially, it’s a “specialization in another subject.” What this means is that you take around 15-30 units in that subject area. You get your minor put on your degree and can later put it on your resume. For many universities, this will encompass a survey of what that major is all about. As an example, my English minor at SDSU included the following:
- Intro to Lit (3 units, waived by AP class from high school)
- One 3-unit course chosen from many courses, primarily on pre-1900s literature
- One 3-unit course chosen from many courses, primarily on post-1900s literature/children’s lit
- Two 3-unit classes that could be any upper-division English classes
As you can see, this is a very flexible minor. I was able to get it done in only a semester, along with my other minor and major. Some other minors, however, are a bit more rigid in their requirements. Using SDSU as a continued example, the accounting minor requires you to take 24 units (eight classes) that are specified for you (six accounting classes, two economics classes). Overall, each subject area aims to give you an overview of the fundamental skills needed to succeed in that area.
Why Should You Get a Minor?
A minor is an excellent chance to branch out and be a more interdisciplinary person and student. Maybe you’re in school for something that’s not your passion, but that will make you decent money. If you have the time in your schedule, why wouldn’t you want to chase your passion while you’re still in college and get credit for it?
Additionally, you can display some skills, competencies, or content area knowledge when you go to look for internships or jobs. Let’s say I have two almost identical candidates for a publishing job. Both are English majors with the same job experience. However, one of them has a minor in business, and they’re able to easily talk about negotiations, different management systems, and various software that they have used because of the minor.
Who would you go with?
Most employers would go with the candidate who has the minor, as it makes them significantly more marketable and desirable. This article discusses all the ways that a minor makes you look more well-rounded to employers–and even get paid more! Minors can not only give you this advantage in content area, but they can also require internships, which result in connections and hard skills. Once more, this will be very attractive to a potential employer.
Finally, you might be on track to graduate early, but you might want to stay the full four years. A college minor can be the perfect way to make that extra semester or year very useful!
How Should I Pick a Minor?
To pick a minor, I suggest evaluating three things: your interests, major, and schedule. Taken together, these will help you to confidently choose the perfect college minor.
Interests
There’s not usually much point in getting a minor in something that will completely bore you. If you’re doing extra school work, you want it to be interesting and useful. Maybe you went to school for biology but you have a passion for communications or English. If you have extra room in your schedule, this could be a great way to justify taking those classes while you’re still in college! Similarly, if you’re focusing on less hard-skill based major (i.e., political science) and you want to diversify your portfolio with something else you’re interested in, it might be a great idea to add something like entrepreneurship or biology.
Most of us only go to college for our undergraduate degree once. Why not capture all of your interests while you’re there?
Major
What is your major?
That should be something easy to answer. Now consider what might go well with your major or your ideal career. Let’s say you have a diplomacy major in hopes of being a Foreign Service Officer or diplomat. What might go well with that?
Off the top of my head, I can think of a few things:
- A language minor
- A business minor
- An international business minor
- A political science minor
- A geography minor
- A linguistics minor
- A cybersecurity minor
And so forth! With all of these, you can see that they would give that initial career goal/major added value. Language or linguistics minors would help to boost your understanding of another language and therefore make you more marketable, especially if you wanted to be a Foreign Service Officer. Business or security minors would let you understand the more tangible things about economics and such that you might have to deal with. Geography would give you some hard skills and asset knowledge that you could take into that job.
With this, it’s easy to see how your major should be a large influence on choosing your minor. Additionally, you can always bring overlapping expertise into that minor, and it could be even easier and more interesting for you!
Schedule
This is the practical side of determining what, if any, minor you should pursue. If you are already cutting it close to not graduating on time, it’s probably not a great idea to tack on a minor. If your degree evaluation looks terrifying in the upcoming semesters due to class difficulty, load, or work, it might not be a good idea.
However, if your schedule looks like it will allow it, a minor could be a great option. If your schedule has room for you to potentially graduate early and you’re on the fence, it’s an even better option to make your university time worthwhile.
It’s also a good idea to see if you’ve already met any requirements for a minor. Many times, lower division units can count toward minor requirements. Going back to my example of an accounting minor at SDSU, two classes required are ECON 101 and 102. Many majors (including mine back in college) required these to be taken as part of a lower division GEs anyway. That would be two of the eight classes out of the way! Similarly, if you can make minor requirements count toward your upper division GEs, you’ll be able to finesse your schedule even more.
Sample Minors and Requirements at Different California Universities:
Each university will have its own requirements for minors. They can differ significantly based on the type of university it is and whether they are on quarters or semesters, so I’ve compiled a sample list of five California universities and their minors below so that you can get a feel for how they work.
Cal Poly SLO (public, quarters)
Conclusion
For me, my college minors were a fantastic part of my university experience. I was able to learn so much from different fields, make great connections, and build my resume. Since going into education, this has been especially helpful. I have skills, resources, and content knowledge that I would not have had if I’d just stuck with my major alone. Additionally, I have fantastic connections now who made my college experience so much better. It’s because of this that I’d recommend a minor to anyone who can take one on.
So what are you waiting for? Get out there, check out your university’s minor requirements, and start chasing your dreams!
