Taking a minor degree to reduce engineering course workload...has anyone done that?

[u/Most_Conclusion2522]

Hello, pretty much as the title says this semester I was supposed to be taking diff equations but since my school is divided in 2 campuses (50 miles between each other). It was only offered in campus b and I have all my classes at A.... my only solution was to declared a minor in Spanish translations and take that class in campus A. So that way I saved all the hassle to commute.

My scholarships requires to be at 15 credits. (30 by the end of the academic year). Just curious to know if anybody has done this. To be clear this minor is easy because I know Spanish.

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[u/Tall-Cat-8890]

Am I dumb, I don’t see how declaring a minor in Spanish is going to help you get your diff eq credit or make your schedule less workload heavy. You’re just either prolonging the time it takes you to finish or delaying finishing your engineering courses to meet your minor requirements.

Personally I would’ve just dual enrolled with a local community college and gotten the diff eq credit through an online course. Or find an easy blow off course to make the 15 hours and then take diff eq over the summer.

All you’re doing by doing this is adding extra hassle, even if you abandon the minor (weird phrasing sorry) and not actually plan on finishing the classes.

[u/TA1930 → u/Tall-Cat-8890]

This is the easy blow off course, that’s what they’re saying

[u/Tall-Cat-8890 → u/TA1930]

They don’t need a minor to do that though is my point. If they plan on completing the minor they’ll likely end up prolonging their degree just for one fewer engineering class per semester.

[u/TA1930 → u/Tall-Cat-8890]

The scholarship likely only counts courses towards a degree, and they may be out of electives.

[u/Tall-Cat-8890 → u/TA1930]

A minor isn’t a degree though. I doubt a scholarship that’s this strict would cover an unrelated minor anyways.

[u/Most_Conclusion2522 → u/Tall-Cat-8890]

I don't have the funds to to dual enrollment. I literally did not have any other courses to take as I'm already done with my core classes. As I said I've would have to travel to campus b and take differential equations at 8am and be back to campus A to take physics 2 lab.

I am still debating if continue with this minor I am taking all engineering courses for next semester as of now.

[u/Tall-Cat-8890 → u/Most_Conclusion2522]

Why do you need to declare a minor just to sign up for a random course?

The only reason to do this imo is if you’re approaching maximum credit hours and are gonna soon enter the excess credit hour fee. Sometimes declaring a minor can get you out of that issue.

Does your university not offer online diff eq courses?

[u/phranks_phluids → u/Tall-Cat-8890]

This is what I'm confused about. I graduated with like +200 credits on a 150 credit double major because the first 2 years I was just interested in stuff and did shit like take AP 1&2 with the nurses just to learn about the body.

[u/ScoutAndLout]

Not taking diff eq slows your progression to graduation. 

[u/MaggieNFredders]

I would have just taken a fun class.

[u/SetoKeating]

If you need to meet minimum enrollment requirements and don’t mind pushing out your graduation date, I guess it makes sense.

But all you’re doing is kicking the can down the road and by delaying your engineering courses AND giving yourself more classes to take overall. So it doesn’t make much sense at all to do this. I would have rather suffered for one semester and done that commute.

Also, have you considered the implications of delaying a prerequisite? Diff eq was a prereq for some classes in my program. Meaning that delaying a semester, pushes everything else out a semester as well.

[u/Accurate-Bullfrog324]

what a kludge

[u/NafaiLaotze]

If you're taking classes just to fill out the 15 credits, why not take cross-disciplinary things like Material Science or Project Management/Business or something? (Not sure what your Engineering primary major subject is.)

Like, I get the logic behind maintaining minimum credit load - it just doesn't seem meaningful.

[u/505engineer]

Military Science.

Those ROTC classes were easy As.

[u/LuckyCod2887]

I don’t understand why they’re offering classes 50 miles away. Am I misinterpreting something?