Better to do 2 Majors or several Minors?

[TCB]

Hi everyone! I've sort of asked about this before but would appreciate any further insight you may have.

My dd is a freshman in college. She is hoping ( pretty sure) to major in Communication Science and Disorders and go on to do a graduate degree and be a Speech Therapist. She has some credits from high school and has tested out of a few classes. One of the things she is pretty certain to do is minor in Spanish and hopefully take the certification tests. She just had an appointment with her advisor and she has shown her a possible plan for ending up with her major and 3 minors - the minors would be Spanish, psychology and Leadership and Community service, but there are definitely other options for the minors. Even with those she will still have free slots to add other classes in her last 2 years.

We are asking ourselves if it is better to do 2 majors rather than all these minors. Can anyone give me advice  on this?

[katilac]

Keep the Spanish for sure! I think that and the Leadership and Community Service will be positives when job-hunting. The psychology minor is probably not quite as helpful in that way, but would be good if she does go on to be a speech therapist. 

Does she have a second major in mind? What is the purpose for her minors or her second major - is it to enhance her first major, or provide alternatives to it? 

Something completely different, like business, would be more helpful is she doesn't go the grad school route, but might also be more difficult to get if there are few overlapping classes. It depends a lot on the gen ed requirements.  

Would she consider swapping out the psychology minor for a business minor? The business minor would be more helpful if she decides to forgo grad school and get a job after graduation, particularly when combined with Spanish and Leadership. If she does become a speech therapist, knowing solid business practices will still be helpful even if she doesn't open her own practice. In this scenario, she could still take some psychology classes, it just wouldn't be a minor. 

When my kids were working on their four-year plans, one thing we did was to list the requirements of their alternative majors as well (the ones they were most likely to switch to if they changed).  We compared the lists for intended majors and minors along with the alternatives and tried to start by only scheduling classes that checked a requirement for all of them. They already had some of their gen ed credits, so it was something we had to consider starting with their first semester and it sounds like your dd is the same way. 

Edited September 24, 2018 by katilac

[TCB]

1 minute ago, katilac said:

Keep the Spanish for sure! I think that and the Leadership and Community Service will be positives when job-hunting. The psychology minor is probably not quite as helpful in that way, but would be good if she does go on to be a speech therapist. 

Does she have a second major in mind? What is the purpose for her minors or her second major - is it to enhance her first major, or provide alternatives to it? 

Something completely different, like business, would be more helpful is she doesn't go the grad school route, but might also be more difficult to get if there are few overlapping classes. It depends a lot on the gen ed requirements.  

Would she consider swapping out the psychology minor for a business minor? The business minor would be more helpful if she decides to forgo grad school and get a job after graduation, particularly when combined with Spanish and Leadership. If she does become a speech therapist, knowing solid business practices will still be helpful even if she doesn't open her own practice. 

When my kids were working on their four-year plans, one thing we did was to list the requirements of their alternative majors as well (the ones they were most likely to switch to if they changed).  We compared the lists for intended majors and minors along with the alternatives and tried to start by only scheduling classes that checked a requirement for all of them. They already had some of their gen ed credits, so it was something we had to consider starting with their first semester. 

Thanks that is very helpful!

To answer some of your questions:

She does not really have a specific 2nd major in mind. She has quite a few of her gen ed requirements done with the credits that she got in high school. We had considered a major in Spanish but someone on here pointed out that doing a minor and getting the certification exams might be just as good for a Speech Therapist. Also if she does a Spanish major instead of a minor her Spanish classes will no longer fulfill some of her gen ed humanities requirements so she would have to take extra gen ed classes.

The reason the psychology minor was suggested to her was that she has to take several psych classes as requirements for Communication Disorders anyway and there are quite a few honors psych classes options. She is in the honors college and has to take a certain number of honors classes and there are not many available in the required Communication Disorders classes in the last 2 years. She's definitely not determined to take a psych minor no matter what. I don't know what the requirements are for a business minor - we'll have to look at those.

As far as the purpose of the minors/2nd major - I guess to enhance her future prospects. At this time she is fairly set on Speech Therapy. She had also been thinking about education, however, once she shadowed a speech therapist working in a school she became fairly sure that this was more what she was looking for. As far as we can tell there do not seem to be that many overlaps with a specific other major with the classes she is required to take, but we are definitely not experts at looking at those things!

Thanks for your advice and tips. Very helpful!

[katilac]

18 minutes ago, TCB said:

We had considered a major in Spanish but someone on here pointed out that doing a minor and getting the certification exams might be just as good for a Speech Therapist.  

The reason the psychology minor was suggested to her was that she has to take several psych classes as requirements for Communication Disorders anyway and there are quite a few honors psych classes options.  

As far as the purpose of the minors/2nd major - I guess to enhance her future prospects. At this time she is fairly set on Speech Therapy. She had also been thinking about education, however, once she shadowed a speech therapist working in a school she became fairly sure that this was more what she was looking for. As far as we can tell there do not seem to be that many overlaps with a specific other major with the classes she is required to take, but we are definitely not experts at looking at those things!

Thanks for your advice and tips. Very helpful!

1

 

I agree that the Spanish minor/certificate will be just as helpful as a major. 

She could still take the psychology classes that will get her honors hours, yes? If they don't have honors at the 100 level, see if she can skip to the 200 level. My youngest was able to do that in anthropology. This checked a box for both business and art, whereas the lower level only checked business and she would have had to take the 200 class later for art. Anyone with a fair number of college credits under their belt should have no problem with a 200 level class. 

The good thing about the teacher possibility is that you can often start working before you have your certification complete. I know at least one person who majored in communication disorders but became a teacher, they are similar in many aspects. 

We did our comparisons old school: printed off requirements for majors and minors, then made a paper list with columns. Gen eds listed first, checkmark by any classes already complete. Then a slog through comparisons and looking up classes that fulfilled the requirement. I'm sure it could be done more efficiently on a computer, but this helped us think it through. 

If she does not do a business minor, I'd encourage her to fill some of those free slots with business classes, which can then be listed on her resume under Relevant Coursework if she's gunning for that type of job. Companies understand that young people often change their minds too late to change their major, but they do like to see exposure to basic business principles. 

 

[TCB]

24 minutes ago, katilac said:

 

I agree that the Spanish minor/certificate will be just as helpful as a major. 

She could still take the psychology classes that will get her honors hours, yes? If they don't have honors at the 100 level, see if she can skip to the 200 level. My youngest was able to do that in anthropology. This checked a box for both business and art, whereas the lower level only checked business and she would have had to take the 200 class later for art. Anyone with a fair number of college credits under their belt should have no problem with a 200 level class. 

The good thing about the teacher possibility is that you can often start working before you have your certification complete. I know at least one person who majored in communication disorders but became a teacher, they are similar in many aspects. 

We did our comparisons old school: printed off requirements for majors and minors, then made a paper list with columns. Gen eds listed first, checkmark by any classes already complete. Then a slog through comparisons and looking up classes that fulfilled the requirement. I'm sure it could be done more efficiently on a computer, but this helped us think it through. 

If she does not do a business minor, I'd encourage her to fill some of those free slots with business classes, which can then be listed on her resume under Relevant Coursework if she's gunning for that type of job. Companies understand that young people often change their minds too late to change their major, but they do like to see exposure to basic business principles. 

 

Thanks! Again lots of good information! We will have to print them out and look through them all. I'm more of an old fashioned pen and  paper person myself.

[Bootsie]

The ability to do multiple majors or minors varies a lot from school to school.  One thing to consider is if there is certain coursework that will be open to her if she has a particular major declared or a minor declared.  For example, I am a finance professor.  We have particular classes in the business school which are for business majors only.  We have a set of classes which are for business minors only.  (So business majors and business minors are not in the same marketing, accounting, or finance courses).  In addition, only business minors are allowed to take the courses for business minors; in other words, a psychology major cannot decide to take accounting or marketing without having a declared business minor.  Of course, this is not the case at all schools.

[TCB]

4 hours ago, jdahlquist said:

The ability to do multiple majors or minors varies a lot from school to school.  One thing to consider is if there is certain coursework that will be open to her if she has a particular major declared or a minor declared.  For example, I am a finance professor.  We have particular classes in the business school which are for business majors only.  We have a set of classes which are for business minors only.  (So business majors and business minors are not in the same marketing, accounting, or finance courses).  In addition, only business minors are allowed to take the courses for business minors; in other words, a psychology major cannot decide to take accounting or marketing without having a declared business minor.  Of course, this is not the case at all schools.

Good to know! We'll have to check that out. Thanks

[J-rap]

I think it all depends on what you're going into, or what you believe you'll be doing, anyway.  For example, my dh majored in both political science and history because he knew he wanted to study something government-related in graduate school.  Both were probably necessary for his interests.

For your dd, I can see that a minor in both Spanish and Psychology might be helpful.  I don't think a major in them is necessary at this point.  Speech therapy can have a huge cognitive aspect, but that will be a more focused type of neuro-science/psychology taught in college or grad school.

Of course if she happens to have a really keen interest in one of those minors, she can always turn it into a second major instead (even if it means having no minors), but I don't think it's necessary.  However, even a Spanish minor might look good on a resume if she's living in an area that has a hispanic population.

My dd majored in communication studies with a minor in graphic design.  Companies don't seem to care that her graphic design experience is a minor rather than a major.  They just want to know that the has the right knowledge.

[TCB]

5 hours ago, J-rap said:

I think it all depends on what you're going into, or what you believe you'll be doing, anyway.  For example, my dh majored in both political science and history because he knew he wanted to study something government-related in graduate school.  Both were probably necessary for his interests.

For your dd, I can see that a minor in both Spanish and Psychology might be helpful.  I don't think a major in them is necessary at this point.  Speech therapy can have a huge cognitive aspect, but that will be a more focused type of neuro-science/psychology taught in college or grad school.

Of course if she happens to have a really keen interest in one of those minors, she can always turn it into a second major instead (even if it means having no minors), but I don't think it's necessary.  However, even a Spanish minor might look good on a resume if she's living in an area that has a hispanic population.

My dd majored in communication studies with a minor in graphic design.  Companies don't seem to care that her graphic design experience is a minor rather than a major.  They just want to know that the has the right knowledge.

Thanks! Great information!

[Crimson Wife]

What is "Leadership and Community Service"? As a potential hiring manager, I would expect those things to be demonstrated through extracurricular activities rather than academic coursework.

Definitely keep the Spanish as at least a minor.

If her school offers Child Development as a minor, that would be very relevant to speech & language pathology and if she had to take a "gap year" between college and graduate school (for instance if she didn't get accepted on the first try), having those credits on her transcript would open up opportunities to work in a related field such as early childhood education, Applied Behavioral Analysis therapy, etc.

[katilac]

35 minutes ago, Crimson Wife said:

What is "Leadership and Community Service"? As a potential hiring manager, I would expect those things to be demonstrated through extracurricular activities rather than academic coursework.

 

 

It's a very common minor these days, and a very useful one imo. The focus is on developing specific skills, learning best practices, ethical concerns, and so forth. I worked in non-profit for quite a few years, so at the intersection of community leadership and community service. I can testify that people can be in leadership and community service positions for years and still be surprised when they are told about rules and best practices! 

[TCB]

I wasn't sure what "Leadership and Community Service" was either so thanks for explaining katilac! 

[G5052]

Like so many college-related things, it really depends. Make sure she maps it out so the scheduling and prerequisites work out.

I ended up with two degrees (double B.S. degrees) and two majors, and it was a great package. It took me just one semester longer than I would have needed for a single B.S. degree and one minor.

I did math and computer science, which got me a plum research job with just a bachelor's where they paid for graduate school. 

My physics minor applied to my research work, and my German minor was a factor in getting a job I had for three summers where they needed a German speaker. I also used my German in my research job when we had visitors from Germany and Austria.

Anyway, just to say that nothing is wasted at times.

My oldest (a junior) has a very powerful major and minor, but really wants to work in the field of the minor. They don't offer that as a major, but the major he chose lines up very well. It will probably take him an extra semester just because of course sequencing, and that's fine.

[Crimson Wife]

23 hours ago, katilac said:

 

It's a very common minor these days, and a very useful one imo. The focus is on developing specific skills, learning best practices, ethical concerns, and so forth. I worked in non-profit for quite a few years, so at the intersection of community leadership and community service. I can testify that people can be in leadership and community service positions for years and still be surprised when they are told about rules and best practices! 

So it's like Public Administration?

I personally don't think leadership can be taught. Either someone has the right personality to be a leader or he/she doesn't. 

[katilac]

17 hours ago, Crimson Wife said:

So it's like Public Administration?

I personally don't think leadership can be taught. Either someone has the right personality to be a leader or he/she doesn't. 

 

To an extent, yes. Schools emphasize different things, I'm sure, but I believe most minors include non-profit and community service information from the volunteer standpoint on at least an equal level. 

I think leadership skills can be taught, and that there are multiple levels of leadership. From my college days onward (which is a very long time  ?), I've seen many people blossom into leadership roles with experience and direct coaching. The minor is likely self-selecting as well: few people without some inclination to leadership are likely to sign up. 

Remember, best practices are also a component. It may come naturally to a person, but they may also only know one style of leadership and would be more effective with more knowledge. And they absolutely need to know what is legal and what is or isn't acceptable practice at most companies. 

 

Edited September 30, 2018 by katilac