Explain College Majors and Minors to me like I’m 5 please

Question

I’m going to college for the first time and I want to Major in Engineering, didn’t realize I had to choose a minor as well and was thinking about Political Science. Do these 2 pair well as far as long term career benefits go? I’m oblivious to this whole college world…

EDIT: Aerospace Engineering, the Astronautical Branch. Sorry for not including in the original post. I’m just a guy who loves space/spaceflight and finally decided I wanted to do something about it by going to school and try to make a difference in the field. My ultimate dreams/aspirations are to work at NASA.

In: 2

Answer 1

Everyone else here has done a good job on major vs minor, so I won’t do that, but I’ve worked for a few years in engineering and can give some advice on minors that might be useful:

– Any minor is not going to be major factor in hiring decisions. It will mostly be a tiebreaker if you and another candidate for a job are extremely similar otherwise. If there’s something you’re really interested in but it has no relevance to Engineering, it really won’t hurt you much to go for it (I have a useless history minor and have never struggled to find a job)

– Political science is not likely to be useful unless you want to Civil Engineering in the public sector. Even then I’d question the value. Only do this if it interests you, don’t count on it being an advantage

– Minors / double majors that have broad value in many different types of Engineering are business focused ones – economics, business management, etc. Companies love it when their engineers not only understand how to do their job but also how what they’re doing affects the bottom line. Also, finding good engineering managers can be tough; if management is something you’re interested in, this gives you a leg up. If this doesn’t interest you, you’ll have to think about what you want to do and think about what pairs well:

– As others have pointed out, if specific careers within engineering interest you, pairing it with a minor that’s related could help. If you want to do Comp Sci to get into game or UI work, pairing that with some kind of art or design work could help, etc.