• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Forget College Majors

R

Rockinacoustic

Platinum Member
Sure everyone talks about their Bachelors, but did you/do you plan to minor in anything? Does it have anything to do with your major?

And for those who have completed undergrad, did it help further your school/career-path, or did you do it out of pure interest in the field?


Personally, I am a Sophomore Majoring in Biology and planning to Minor is Computer Science for:
1). Sheer interest.
and
2). Leading to a possible graduate path in Bioinformatics.
 
Math major with Computer science minor - namely because I started as a CS major and all the math classes cross applied but in the long run in has helped me with jobs as having a CS background shows i have some solid knowledge of programming principals.
 
I majored in Computer Science, and if I had realized earlier that I'd only need a few more classes to minor in Mathematics I probably would have done it. I started out majoring in math, but never took any classes in the major... switched to Computer Science which had a lot of overlap with math.

Interesting side note - I always thought it was odd that O'Reilly has a book called Beginning Perl for Bioinformatics. They usually don't do books for such specific fields. They have Programming Perl, Intermediate Perl, Advanced Perl, Perl Cookbook, Perl Best Practices, etc... and then they threw in Beginning Perl for Bioinformatics. If you ever find yourself using Perl in your future bioinformatics career, don't be one of those Perl programmers who like to write unreadable Perl. Perl has a lot of "punctuation variables" and strange coding constructs. Avoid using them.
 
Anthropology with minors in Asian Studies and History. Usually you will see that classes related to your major can cross count for other things. Sounds like your plan is a good one!
 
My school didn't have minors until my last year. When they started them I discovered I was one class away from a minor in physics. Did I take the class? Hell no. A pox on minors and everything related to them. Ptuh!
 
I don't really know of anyone who has gone out of their way to get one.

Usually they are really close (1 class away) or get it through courses they needed anyways.

For instance I'm an accounting major, but we can opt to take several upper div finance courses so through those I'm going to wind up with a minor in finance. I didn't really plan for it, and don't really care, its just a bonus.
 
Originally posted by: TallBill
What does a minor look like on paper? I don't understand the point.
Click to expand...

What's the point of the major? I can easily take enough classes to meet the major requirements for three fields. It seems like to me that graduate school is where most of the real learning takes place.
 
Originally posted by: TallBill
Originally posted by: her209
Double major...
Click to expand...

Well, I can understand that. 2 pieces of paper (degrees), but I still don't get the minor thing.
Click to expand...

hmm, my double major was still only one actual piece of paper

I was only a class away from a history minor... decided to take a sociology class that looked interesting instead.

I'd say the value lies more in exploring a more diverse range of subjects and that potential employers might recognize you as spending the time to broaden your academic horizons rather than simply focus you attention on one specialty.
 
Originally posted by: TallBill
Originally posted by: her209
Double major...
Click to expand...

Well, I can understand that. 2 pieces of paper (degrees), but I still don't get the minor thing.
Click to expand...

What's not to get? 😕 You put it on your resume, it indicates that you completed significant coursework in that area of study but not as much as someone who majored in it. I think it's particularly useful in a general field where you could work in a variety of industries - the minor would give you some specialization. For instance, I have a friend who majored in International Business and minored in Spanish. I don't think I need to explain why you'd do something like that... Or in my case, I majored in C.S. and could have minored in mathematics. Turned out my math background was a big plus when I was interviewing for a job where I wrote a simulator that was very heavy on mathematical calculations.
 
I'm majoring in Graphic Design and minoring in Photography. The minor in photography is to *hopefully* make myself more marketable.
 
CS + Math minor, Math + CS minor, etc. shows you're a little more hardcore than someone who took easy classes like basket weaving and film criticism to round out their technical degree.

My bachelor's was in CS, and I was 1 class short of an applied math minor but I'd have needed to stay an extra semester to get it.

I didn't set out to almost get the minor, I just ended uo taking a few extra math classes that looked interesting like numerical analysis and complex variables.
 
Originally posted by: TallBill
Originally posted by: her209
Double major...
Click to expand...

Well, I can understand that. 2 pieces of paper (degrees), but I still don't get the minor thing.
Click to expand...
Like mugs said, I guess it is something good to put on a resume. A friend of mine here is majoring in computer science, but she's transferring to another college their minor programs. She wants two minors, I forget specifically which, but she said that doing so will help her be able to write her own programs to perform custom simulations, which she also said is in demand for certain government and private sector jobs. Something like, "Will Something A be bad for Something B if 100,000 impacts occur between the two in the next two years? Run a simulation and find out."
So whatever the purpose of these minors, apparently they're useful enough to warrant switching colleges and moving a few hundred miles away.

I'm working on doing a decent job on a major first. If I want anything else afterward, I'll deal with it then, unless I happen to find that I already have a lot of classes necessary for a minor. I'd like to learn more about nuclear physics, quantum mechanics, and Modified Newtonian Dynamics. The latter, MOND, is especially interesting to me, because it seems to be able to explain away the need for dark matter. If I understand it right, and I may be way off, gravitational simulations typically done of large numbers of stars, such as in a galaxy, use classical Newtonian physics, and thus do not account for a variety of factors, the biggest one being relativity. Gravity takes time to travel over a distance, and the mass of a body changes depending on a speed, thus its gravitational attraction will also change. I think that MOND tries to account for this.

But I don't know that a mechanical engineer with a minor in various fields of confirmed or theoretical subatomic physics would be of much use. 🙂
That, and I'm just quite sick of college and want it to be done with. I see it as little more than a really damn lengthy and expensive job training program. I want my major done so I can get a job and finally feel like I have some money again. Anything more than that, I'll worry about later.
 
I'm a EE with a minor in Political Science. I got the minor because I just took some classes I was interested in and realized I only needed 2 more to complete the minor.

The minor helped me (a little) get a job for the government, as it happens. Also, for TallBill: virtually every person I interviewed with that had seen my resume asked about the minor (why I got it, etc.). Even if it had no other value, it made a great way to get interviews rolling.
 
I'm working on a CS degree, minoring in Spanish, hoping to minor in Nuclear Engineering, and then am also completing all the courses for an Entrepreneurship certificate. (not a minor yet, not sure if/when it would be, these are newer courses)

Spanish - I enjoy it, took 4 years in HS, 2 years in middle school for 1 year of HS value, it'll be a handful of classes to get through it, but I do enjoy it
NucE - with my CS degree, it would put me in a good position for working at a nuclear power based company
Entrepreneurship - I guess this is what makes it worth for me to live for and what I spend all my time on

In a 4 year period, I can finish the Spanish/Entrepreneurship portions, but NucE will require a 5th year, and I haven't entirely decided yet if that's what I'll end up doing.
 
It can relate, or not. Your choice entirely. It can help or not, depending.

A major in history lets me get endorsed to teach history, but my minor in poli-sci gives me the info to eventually teach government and world problems classes as well (after picking up the usually required social studies endorsement after a few years).
 
Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo
I'm working on a CS degree, minoring in Spanish, hoping to minor in Nuclear Engineering, and then am also completing all the courses for an Entrepreneurship certificate. (not a minor yet, not sure if/when it would be, these are newer courses)

Spanish - I enjoy it, took 4 years in HS, 2 years in middle school for 1 year of HS value, it'll be a handful of classes to get through it, but I do enjoy it
NucE - with my CS degree, it would put me in a good position for working at a nuclear power based company
Entrepreneurship - I guess this is what makes it worth for me to live for and what I spend all my time on

In a 4 year period, I can finish the Spanish/Entrepreneurship portions, but NucE will require a 5th year, and I haven't entirely decided yet if that's what I'll end up doing.
Click to expand...

Puedo ir al bano?
 
i'm not sure i'm going to have any minors. i considered it but after seeing how every single major i'm considering basically shares all the lower division courses and the number of upper division courses i need to get a minor in each of these majors is like 1 less course than the major, i might end up double majoring. who knows.
 
I majored in Computer Engineering with a minor in Physics for my BS. Came in handy since I do my grad work in computational electromagnetics.
 
I'm minoring in Computer Science. Majoring in Operation Management and Information Systems. The reason I did it was because I only needed 4 more classes + 1 that I already took to get the minor and I needed to take and it just so happened that I needed 5 total classes outside my major so I figured this will look better. Plus they complement each other.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top