Minors: Passions or Curricular Enhancements?

Both! Being a student at the college level is hard.  It is difficult to keep up with demanding courseloads and it is difficult to narrow down your interests and decide the course of study that will dermine your future career.  In my eyes, your major is the coursework that prepares you for your career or for graduate or professional school in the field.  Minors, however, are an opportunity to focus on other subjects or areas that are not necessarily directly related to your major.  Minors are a way to study subjects that interest you while also providing you with new knowledge and perspectives which can enhance your major studies and academic experience as a whole.

I have decided that I am going to minor in Spanish and Linguistics.  I have already met with an advisor from the Spanish and Portuguese Department and declared the minor but I have not yet declared my Linguistics minors.  Another exciting aspect of minors is the ability to concentrate in a specific area of the field.  For example, my Spanish minor concentration will be Hispanic Linguistics and I will take classes that revolve around the linguistic aspect of the language.  Additionally, my Linguistics minor concentration will be Neuroscience and I will take classes that explore the neurological and cognitive aspects of language and language development.

My hope is that by continuing my Spanish education, I will become fluent and able to freely communicate with native speakers, specifically clients and the families of clients that I will serve as a Speech-Language Pathologist.  By engaging myself in the study of Linguistics, I will be learning about something that is truly fascinating to me and will gain new perspectives and information on all things language which will enhance my Speech and Hearing Science major curriculum.  I believe that these courses of study will allow me to become a well rounded student, engage my curiosities, and make me an ideal candidate for graduate school and eventually employment as a Pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist.

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