One of the greatest modern inventions in the field of higher education is the minor.
I am not speaking of individuals under the age of eighteen ““ they are not that recent, nor that applicable to the subject of higher education. I am speaking of the option we have of picking up an extra bundle of classes in addition to our major. Of course, in order to serve its full purpose, a minor has to be achieved in something relatively useless and completely frivolous. Something practical like accounting may serve as padding on a resume but might not actually do anything for the chi. And minors should be used solely for the chi.
After wading through General Education classes, we are for the most part suddenly emerged in just one field of information. And that sort of thing comes in handy when you think of graduate school or getting a job. However, without a seemingly arbitrary minor, that one-sided education is just not that much fun. Granted, you could be a psychobiology major who is truly interested in your field. But there is no way that your only interest ever has been biology.
We muse so much about the future, about jobs and schools and paychecks, that sometimes we forget to learn something just for the sake of it. A proper minor is like icing on a cake, and there are 77 kinds to choose from here at UCLA
Despite living in California and studying in Southern California, I chose to minor in French. I think I’ve used it once in Beverly Hills to get a haircut. I said, “Oui, c’est jolie” (“Yes, that’s pretty”). Here, French definitely qualifies as being of very minimal use. But I almost like it the better for that. I am exposed to a variety of films and literature that I would never have had access to or the means to appreciate if I hadn’t picked up this subject on a whim.
Nikki Sanders, a fourth-year political science student with an Central and East European Studies minor feels the same way. She says she chose this field because she was interested in it and enjoyed the Hungarian language component of it.
“I guess this was one of my only times to study something unusual before going to graduate school or getting a job,” she said, commenting on her minor.
It’s true that minors can add extra weight on heavy class loads, but if you take up something you are really interested in, it should be an effective break from the holding pattern of similar classes in your major. The fact of the matter is that minoring in something is a way of dabbling in a field without taking any serious responsibility for that education. So why bother with something mundane?
A good minor should make for a great conversation, or rather, an atypical conversation.
Take the Classical Civilization minor for example. There is a very miniscule chance that anyone would ever have to know who Philoctetes was. But, after eight classes on ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, it’s probably something you wouldn’t have to think twice about. Knowledge of Greek heroes, Roman battles and ancient legends might seem extremely superfluous, but it would never actually be characterized as a black mark on an undergraduate career. Human beings are supposed to be curious, and not just about one mainstream line of knowledge. That’s not a human, that’s a lemming.
We supposedly come from this great system of holistic admissions ““ when sifting through our applications UCLA wanted to make sure we were real people, interested in a variety of subjects. Why should that stop just because we made it through the admissions process? Besides, if you are still stuck on external validation, imagine a political science major with a neuroscience minor. Applying for a position in a campaign, that kid would be one of the few people there who could speak of grey matter or synapses with any kind of clarity.
It might not seem relevant, but it speaks of variety in an individual’s character. In addition to that, relevancy is kind of a fluid concept anyway; it’s something you could probably control to a higher degree than is commonly believed. Take up an odd minor that has nothing to do with your life goals. It might be kind of cool to be the only one who knows what Labor and Workplace Studies is about.