Diana Pochara

Minors can be additional credentials to your resume that differentiate you from employers because it requires an additional course load and increases knowledge in subjects.

Definition of a minor

According to Indeed, one of the biggest online employment websites for job listings, “A college minor consists of five or more classes within a discipline…These disciplines are related or unrelated to your college major…Minors are additional programs that you can declare to further specialize your studies. You cannot choose a minor without a major, but you don’t need to declare a minor to graduate.”

According to Grand Canyon University, the top rated college in Arizona, “A minor is not a standalone degree. Rather, it’s a separate concentration or a specialization, similar to the concentration in public accounting that an accounting major might choose. If you opt for a minor, you’ll take extra classes to complete that additional program or concentration.”

Reasons for a minor

According to Coursera, a global online learning platform that offers access to online courses and degrees from leading universities and companies, “You can explore a passion by choosing to minor in it. Some students may minor in art or music because they enjoy creative expression, while others may choose a minor in data science or psychology because they want to learn more about what makes machines or people tick. Either way, it’s an opportunity to take courses and learn more about an area that interests you.”

In addition students can:

• Expand career opportunities
• Expand your subject knowledge with a complimentary minor
• Add to your skill set
• Learn about unrelated fields

Requirements of a minor

According to Penn State’s Undergraduate Education Academic Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual:

• A minor is an academic program of at least 18 credits. A minor program may consist of course work in a single area or from several disciplines, but must include at least six credits at the 400-level.
• Total requirements for a minor are to be specified and generally limited to 18 to 21 credits. All courses for a minor must be completed with a grade of “C” or above
• At least 6 credits of the minor must be completed in courses offered by the University or in cooperative degree programs that have been established by formal agreement and approved by the University Faculty Senate
• At least 6 credits of the minor must be unique from the Prescribed Courses required by the student’s major program(s)
• Some minors are generally intended to add breadth to the student’s academic experience and often will have minimal prerequisite preparation required to begin the minor… entrance to some minors may require the completion of a number of prerequisites including courses, portfolios, auditions, or other forms of documentation that are not included in the total requirements for the minor
• Requirements for a minor may be completed at any campus location offering the specified courses for the minor. Students may not change from a campus that offers their major to a campus that does not offer their major for the purpose of completing a minor
• Intent to pursue a minor may be declared after the student has achieved at least third semester classification or has been accepted into his/her major, but prior to the end of the late drop period of the student’s final semester

Strategies to choose a minor

You can find the list of minors using the Penn State undergraduate bullet website, which offers over 200 minors in various industries such as computer science, language, and business.

Certain majors like finance and accounting will have intersecting classes that fulfill each other’s requirements as you are pursuing your major (ex. pursuing a finance major and taking accounting courses to fulfill business course requirements)

According to Coursera, “Before you choose a minor, consider your motivation. Are you most interested in augmenting your major, broadening your career opportunities, developing new skills, or exploring your passion? The answer will help you determine which minor to choose.”

Other minors will have intersecting knowledge and usefulness in your primary career. For example, according to the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science division of Penn State, “Because most engineering companies operate in a global marketplace, the ability to communicate in a language other than English is an important skill. Consider a foreign language for your minor:”

• Chinese
• French
• German
• Japanese
• Russian
• Spanish

Researching growing areas and skills required in your career could help you better pick a relevant minor.

According to professor Dave Paul, a part-time management information systems professor at Abington, who has a Master of Science in Engineering (M.S.E.) in Computer Engineering, “Technology is HUGE in all industries. Project & Supply Chain management has the most jobs outside of accounting.”

According to Lisa Nevada, an alumni of Penn State Abington, who double majored in finance and accounting, “The accounting and finance majors at Penn State Abington are nearly identical. I only needed an additional five courses to complete the double major. For me, that was one extra semester because I was able to take some of those classes online. I don’t know that many people realize the two majors are so alike. Double majoring in finance actually gives me a bit of an advantage as an auditor, as I’m already familiar with some of the valuation work that we hire outside specialists to perform for us.”

Disclaimers

According to Penn State’ Undergraduate Education Academic Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual:

• A student may not declare a minor that is the same as his/her major (e.g., a student majoring in History may not also declare a History minor)
• In those instances where a minor requires an entry fee or entrance requirement, the student must declare before the end of the regular add/drop period of their final semester. The fee will be applied to the student’s semester bill at the time the intent is submitted
• If the student has declared a minor, but then terminates degree enrollment, the minor declaration becomes void. The student must submit a new minor declaration after receiving degree status through the reenrollment process
• Circumstances can arise in which there are multiple versions of a minor (for example, there have on occasion been several concurrent versions of minors such as psychology, math, English, etc.); a student may complete only one version of that minor
• A minor may be awarded retroactively through the following process: The associate dean or designee certifies that a student has met the requirements for the minor at the time of graduation and forwards this information to the University Registrar in writing.
  • The Registrar adds the appropriate notation to the student’s transcript
  • The certificate for the minor is produced and mailed to the student

How to add a minor using LionPath

If you have chosen a minor you will need to register it using LionPath:

First log into your LionPath account using your PSU email

From the Student Home Base page, select the “Degree Planning and Progress” button that is on the upper right corner, under “Enrollment”

From Degree Planning and Progress, select “Update Academics” from the left side of the page, under “View My Major Preferences”

Make sure to properly read the instructions that will pop up. You may need more classes to graduate with a minor which could result in a surcharge if you take more than 19 credits a semester.

Prior to requesting any changes it is recommended to meet with your academic advisor to discuss your plans.

Students with aid or scholarships tied to enrollment in a particular college should contact the Office of Student Aid to ensure understanding of any ramifications related to a change in your academics and student athletes should contact the representative at their location to ensure understanding of any ramifications related to a change in your academics.

After completing the recommendations above, view the requested actions beside the minor and click the “No” slot to shift it to “Yes.” It will prompt you to select the minor you’re interested in.

Once you choose from the “Select Minor by Plan and Program (College)” list, the information will autoflow and you can click accept. Minors are “hosted” by other campuses but are available for Abington students to pursue.

Select “Confirm” once everything looks accurate or “Cancel” to exit the process.

You must confirm that you have read a tuition recalculation statement prior to the request being submitted. You will be notified regarding the results of your request.

For a visual tutorial on how to update academics you can follow the official Penn State instructions.

When a minor may be unneeded

Although a minor can be useful to boost your resume by taking more courses and increasing your credit amounts, a minor is not always needed and may not be useful in the future. This can be due to several reasons:

• A heavy major (engineering, computer science, nursing)
• Time consumption (can take more than 8 semesters to finish required amount of classes)
• Irrelevant to future career (minors that may not be useful or impactful to career, or will be ignored by employer)
• Trade-off between working and getting more classes (less time available for internships and work-life balance due to heavier course load)
• Increased financial burden (more classes could mean needing to get higher student loans, especially if classes are above 19 credits)

Ultimately, it will be up to several factors and your current situation if you should get a minor. There are several opportunities and opportunity costs to a minor that need to be weighed.

How to strategically complete a minor (not to get overwhelmed)

From my own experience with a finance minor, accounting major, an internship and a PT job, I’ve had to keep myself accountable and ahead in order to handle everything. My current main strategies are:

• Setting a semester goal and daily goals for myself
  • My current semester goal, get all A’s, do whatever is needed
  • My daily goals consist of getting a certain amount of assignments done or progressing on certain looming projects
• Reflecting daily on why I did or did not reach my goal
  • “Did I let myself get distracted too much? Did I underestimate the assignment?”
• Taking the time to plan out my future courses
  • I created a chart on what I would choose in the next semesters based on what I needed to graduate as soon as the next semester classes were out
  • I admit I use rate my professor because it gives me an idea on what classes I will need to spend more or less time on
    • I ask myself “will I need to study more in this class instead of this one?” “Will I be teaching myself or is the teacher good at teaching?”
  • “Will this course be here next semester? Can I fit it in now?”
• Spreading out my courses
  • “This course is heavy, and I already have heavy courses, but I can take this next semester”
• Giving up many hobbies
  • I enjoy gaming, watching tv shows, and chatting with friends, to accomplish my goals I’ve cut out most of these hobbies and activities to focus on my education and goals
  • When I used to play the game Clash Royale for over an hour each day (not counting the continuous relogs) I decided the best way to stop getting distracted was to delete it
• Putting myself in an environment that will not distract me
  • Shutting down my phone, putting myself in a school computer lab that does not have my downloaded games, or saved bookmarks
  • I choose to listen to music during my sessions because that keeps me focused on the assignment and not be bored while doing it
  • I get a lot less done on my personal computer and at home
• Always doing a little bit each day
  • Even if it’s just copy-pasting an assignment into a word document to look at later, or just adding a sentence, doing a little bit of your assignments each day will save you from stress later
• Getting simple things done early
  • Take the time to see what you can get done quickly in one day
    • I find Smartbook Connect assignments a simple thing to get done early
• Not underestimating myself
  • In my first semester here, I only took 4 courses because I had just come out of online college and did not believe I could handle 5+ physical classes, this has set me back greatly because I need heavier semesters (6+ classes) in order to finish on time with courses I want to take
  • I deeply regret this because I missed classes I want to take and have had to play catch up (such as by taking 4 classes in one summer)

 

Alternatives

Instead of a minor, there are multiple different ways to stand out to employers by strengthening your resume and experience during your education. Some ways include:

Double Majoring –  According to U.S. News, “Generally, a double major refers to a degree in which a student has earned enough credits for majors in two different, but often related, disciplines. Students typically earn one degree with two majors that are on the same bachelor’s degree track. Some universities allow students to double major in two unrelated fields and degree tracks, though.”

Dual-Degree Program – “A double major is different from a dual-degree program, which typically confers two separate diplomas and may require more credit hours.”

Internships and Co-ops – According to Indeed, one of the biggest online employment websites for job listings, “The primary difference between a co-op and an internship is the time invested in each program. Internships are brief work experience programs that last for about one semester and most are completed over the summer. Co-ops usually last for a longer duration with your responsibilities increasing as your education progresses…These experiences might lead to a job offer or help you stand out as a better candidate when you apply to jobs after graduation”

Master’s Degree – A master’s degree is an additional degree after getting your bachelor’s. In addition, you can declare a minor whilst getting your master’s degree.

Work Study Programs – According to Penn State’s website, “Federal Work-Study provides part-time jobs for undergraduate and graduate students with financial need, allowing them to earn money to help pay education expenses. The program encourages community service work and work related to the student’s course of study.”

On-Campus Employment – Get paid to help your fellow students by tutoring, setting up events, guiding students, on-campus internships, and more. This can lead to a flexible schedule and benefits towards your education/career. Find open positions through Penn State’s website, speak with employed students, or email achieve-ab@psu.edu for inquiries about open positions/questions.

Research Projects/Case Competitions – Check your PSU email for emails from students, professors, or Penn State for opportunities to participate in case competitions and research projects. These are invaluable experiences that can be added to your resume and discussed during interviews. Certain case competitions offer monetary rewards, while working with professors on a research project can lead to recommendations and networking opportunities.

Volunteering – Volunteer to learn at different firms or to help others and gain leadership experience and experience in different areas.

Student Organizations – Participate in the boards (ex. president, treasurer) or as a member of multiple different student organizations right on campus. Participating in student organization boards can lead to networking opportunities with students, a resume boost, and leadership experience.

Certifications – Seek certificates for your career or seek certificates for your LinkedIn profile.

In addition, you can choose to double minor.

“I think everyone should absolutely make the most of their college experience. If you can squeeze in extra courses and turn those into a minor or even a second major, that stands out on your resume. Employers look for individuals who are willing to put in the extra time and effort to capitalize on their educational opportunities.” – Nevada