Why You Should Take On a College Minor

Picking a major is a stressful endeavor. It seems like you’re picking one single thing that will show employers not only what you’re interested in, but what you plan on spending the rest of your life doing. Minors are a lot more fun. Think of them as toppings on your college diploma ice cream sundae. Your major is the main ice cream flavor, and minors are the pieces you sprinkle on top. (Sorry, you’re probably hungry now.) Minors can be anything. They can be additions on your diploma that show another area that you have training, or they don’t have to do anything with your major at all. For instance, I am a journalism major. That is what I want to do with my life for the most part. I am thinking about taking on a minor in informatics to show that I have experience with coding that could help me in my journalistic work. But if I have time in my schedule, I might add on an art history minor, for the pure reason that I’m interested in it and would like to take the related classes. Minors are a great way to add aspects to your major to make you a unique candidate that an employer would want to hire. In order to pick a minor you first need to determine what kind of time you have in your college credit hours. Talk to your academic counselor about how many credit hours you have to complete for the requirements in your major. Subtract those from how many credit hours you have time for in college, meaning if you were taking 15 credit hours per semester. That’ll show you how much time you have for a minor. Minors usually only require about 15 credit hours, which would be five 3-credit hour classes. That doesn’t take too much time to complete, especially if you came into college with a few AP credits and dual-credit classes from high school. I would suggest first looking at something that would be a good add-on to your major. Those minors are going to end up being the most valuable to you in the long run. But I don’t think there is anything wrong with minoring in something that you are interested in, but doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with your major of study. Taking a bunch of intense classes can get stressful, and taking one fun class for your minor a semester might be what you need from not going crazy in college. Check out your schools list of minors and see what could be the best for you. Talk to your academic advisor and ask them what they think about minors and how much time you have to complete one. Trust me, they know everything. Keep looking and get the exact degree you want!