Selecting a major can be difficult, but you've narrowed it
down to a field in the sciences. But, have you considered choosing a minor to
go with your science major?
Not sure what a minor is? A minor is like a “mini major”—it means that you take a certain number of courses (each university has a different requirement) in a subject area outside of your major. Most colleges do not require students to select a minor, but you may want to consider one.
How do you choose a minor? Here are three ways to make the decision:
Take the Strategic Approach
You can make choosing a minor a strategic decision,
selecting a subject based on your intended career path. For example, if you are
majoring in biology but want to open your own petting zoo one day, a minor in
business is a wise choice. What if you're majoring in physics and plan to
conduct research overseas—in this case, picking a minor in the language of the
country where you want to work is a good move. Or, if you're having a hard time
deciding on a major in chemistry or physics, why not make one your major and
the other your minor?
Follow Your Passion
But your minor doesn't have to be a career move. You can
declare a minor in art history because you love art and want to know why people
create it. If you have always been fascinated by anthropology but don't want to
teach or do research in that area, now's your chance to learn all that you can.
Use Logic
Look at the courses you'll be required to take for your
major. You may find that filling these general requirements puts you very close
to the requirements for certain minors—you may just have to take two or three
more courses to qualify.
You don't have to know your minor going in to your freshman year, but it's a good idea to start early so that you can meet all the requirements. Like with majors, you can change your minor along the way (although this can mean taking extra courses to graduate). And, you can always drop your minor entirely; so, if you decide by your junior year that you don't want to finish all those art history classes, you can drop back to just a biology major with no minor at all.
