Minors are a shit show and make no sense most of the time! Some people do minors for fun! Like “I’m doing my major in biology cuz I want to be a doctor, but getting my minor in Art History cuz Monet is the shit. Other times people get minors that complement their majors, like people who get a major in Women’s Studies and a minor in Critical Race Theory. When I was at WSU, my Data Analytics program required that you have a minor, cuz knowing how to analyze data is useless if not applied (2bcont)
Thanks for the additions, Livvy! ♥
Yeah, that’s what’s the most confusing to me, the disparity of subjects and how they are applied to a main degree. It’s not impossible in universities here to take classes from other degrees/career paths, at least in mine, but unless the class is part of your degree’s program, it won’t really count academically. Even when it comes to postgraduate courses you’re required a certain degree to take them, there are other more flexible specialization options, but when it comes to a main degree, choosing classes from another specialty won’t add anything concrete to your degree unless the classes are part of your program (I had several classes from the Literature department and one from the Anthropology department in my program, but then I also took classes from the Literature department before switching degrees that didn’t count academically once I changed, like Ancient Greek, Philosophy or Sociology, which I’m glad I did because I like them but they didn’t add anything concrete to my degree).
I guess my biggest confusion is on that, because I see how that can be interesting personally, having very different courses at the same time, but with the way I’m used to it’s confusing to me to see how those work in terms of a specific degree’s program and the result once you graduate.
With things like gender studies though, now that you mention it, I get it a lot more, so I think I can understand. Once upon a time I wanted to take a postgraduate course on feminist theory and gender studies, which was in my faculty, and I wasn’t allowed because I needed a degree with a certain type of orientation and amount of hours put in, like Anthropology. Some years later, they made an advanced degree option, which was more flexible and didn’t require a certain degree, but it was with a fee (my university, which is one of the biggest in the country, is public, you don’t have to pay to study there, you just pay your own expenses like materials, travel fees, etc., and that doesn’t compromise the level of education, there are nowadays several issues for different reasons, but it remains one of the best unis in the country in academic terms). So I got pretty mad because I get that it relates to a certain degree’s path in terms of needing maybe some theory background on social studies (which I do happen to have, for different reasons, but even if I didn’t), but it’s also something that relates to my reality? and the reality of others who may not even have a degree in the first place? And I know there are less academic spaces to explore these subjects, and some activist groups do a very good job of creating spaces for it, but it’d be cool to have that as a backbone to every degree for anyone who wants to take it, because it’s an intersectional experience, you know? It doesn’t matter if you’ll apply it theoretically, you apply it in practice every day. In any case, I checked the program and wasn’t thrilled with the optics on it, but the lack of accessibility for something that should be more accessible made me mad. So I think I get with that example why flexibility is also important in programs.
This was a lot longer of a response than I wanted to make it lol sorry and thank you for the examples and your time!! ♥
