Need some opinions about college: Should I drop my minor to finish my major classes early?

[cchen]

I'm currenly an Operations Research major, econ minor. I want to eventually work in the financial or consulting industry. I will be pursuing graduate degrees in OR and probably in Financial Engineering, with maybe a PhD if I'm up to it.

Anyway, I wanted to minor in Econ because the info would be useful and practical in everyday life and could be applied to the financial industry. However, I could finish my BS in 3.5 years and start my grad degrees earlier if I don't minor in econ.

So what do you think? Is the minor worth it?

 

[sandmanwake]

You may be able to get the minor in grad school also (and with fewer classes) depending on your school. For example, I dropped my math minor so that I could finish my Comp Engr Bachelor in 4 years despite co-oping and then got into grad school.

My school only requires that you have 2 graduate level classes outside your major to get a minor in that field, so I'm going to minor in math and comp sci--means I'll be getting my Masters in the normal 2 years instead of the 1.5 I could have, but I figure I'm getting 2 minors out of it and giving the economy more time to recover, so it's a good deal. Should I ever want to teach math or comp sci, I could do so in my state since I will have a minor in them--though I probably could already have taught comp sci if I wanted to since I my degree will be Comp Engr.

Something to keep in mind, so check out your grad school's policy on minors.

 

[DaveSimmons]

good advice above. One reason to stay though would be if having the minor will help you stand out / look stronger when applying to grad schools. Another would be if you need to raise your GPA a little.

 

[cchen]

LoL.... I was actually thinking the opposite, that the econ classes would bring my gpa down...

I was thinking of staying at Columbia for grad school, process would just be a lot easier if i started earlier...

any other suggestions?