English Department: The Minor

Table of Contents:

Advantages of the English Minor
Who can minor in English?
Regulations affecting the Minor
Careers for graduates with English Minors
Download the English Minor Application

The English minor is an excellent opportunity for Cal Poly students. Any minor allows you to complement courses in your major with work in another discipline. When you graduate, your transcript will show that you have completed a minor as well as a major. A minor allows you to concentrate your electives, learning enough about another discipline so that you can be well educated in two academic areas.

The English minor offers special opportunities for students in technical majors who might otherwise take a scattering of "available" electives without developing a coherent complement to their technical training. It also offers students in majors close to English--such as Speech and Journalism--a chance to broaden their competence in a related ares. Or the minor allows students working toward a teaching credential in any discipline to meet the requirements for an "Add-on" credential in English. This capability will significantly increase the job opportunities open to education students. The minor is simple and should not increase the total number of hours you must have for graduation. You need only plan your elective courses to include twenty-seven hours of English courses (those established for the minor and listed in the "Requirements" section of this directory). The English minor is planned to offer satisfaction for you as a student, as well as significant advantages in your career.

People who choose to study English like to read, and the minor gives them that pleasure, as well as providing a basis of critical understanding for a lifetime of reading. Most English majors are good writers as well; and they choose to study what they enjoy, just as most students in other majors do. Clearly, the minor in English is a pleasure for people like you, and this pleasure is one of the main advantages of the minor.

It is also a practical choice. With an English minor on your transcript, you will stand out from other candidates when you look for a job. Employers are seeking well-rounded people who understand the world more broadly than a technical major usually allows and who can communicate their understanding to others. They are looking for candidates who can do more than just the immediate job. With training in close reading, precise writing, and critical thinking, you will be better equipped to advance after you are hired. Many studies have shown that people educated in the humanities progress further and faster than those trained only in a technical discipline.

Another excellent source of career help for English minors is the English Department Co-op Program. This program gives Cal Poly students practical experience in jobs relating to their career objectives and their academic fields of study. By alternating periods of training in business, industry, or government with periods of classroom study, a student can gain knowledge, skill, and experience invaluable to career development. Positions are usually available in technical and creative writing, law, government, management, marketing, and in dozens of other careers. The English Department can provide more information if you are interested in combining your major and minor in a co-op program job. Call (805) 756-2596 or visit the English Department office in FOB 32. The English minor can improve your long-range job prospects by allowing you to be more flexible. A large percentage of people change careers completely at once before they retire, and this pattern is increasing. Education in more than one field--especially if your second field is as broadly useful as an English minor is--may allow you wider choices when the time for change comes. .

Anyone can take an English minor. For students in most majors, taking a minor will be easy. Often about half the work for the English minor can be accommodated by meeting the general education requirements. They may be "double-counted." That is, they will fulfill the humanities requirements of your major course of study while at the same time completing a large part of the twenty-seven hours which make up an English minor.

You probably can use other electives allowed by your major to finish the minor. If you have already taken English classes at Cal Poly or another university, it is likely that some of them can count toward a minor, even though they are not part of the list of minor courses.

If you want to know how the English minor fits into your curriculum, talk with one of the English minor advisors. English Department staff can tell you who the minor advisors are. Call (805) 756-2596, or visit the office in FOB 32.

No minor is required for the bachelor's degree.
A minor is a formal aggregate of classes in a specific subject area designed to give a student documented competency in a secondary course of study. In contrast to options and concentrations it stands alone and is distinct from and outside the student's degree major. It's intended that the minor will be completed along with the requirements for the bachelor's degree. The student's transcript will certify completion of the minor.
The minor consists of 28 quarter units, of which at least half must be upper division. Twelve or more of the units in the minor must be in specified courses with the remainder, if any, to be chosen from an approved list.
Minors require the same academic review process and justification in terms of purpose, resources, need, etc., as do options and concentrations.
Students who wish to complete a minor are to contact the department offering the academic minor as early as possible in the program and fill out the appropriate agreement form.
Units taken for completion of a minor may be counted for satisfaction of general education--breadth requirements and for completion of "support" course units for the major. Also, units taken for completion of the minor may not be counted to satisfy requirements for courses in the "Major" column of the student's major curriculum sheet.
A minimum of one-half of the required course work for a minor must be completed in residence.
A minimum overall 2.0 grade point average is required in all units counted for completion of the minor. Two-thirds of all units counted in the minor must be in courses graded A to F except for those courses which are graded on a mandatory CR/NC basis.
Completion of a minor will be noted on the student's Permanent Record Card and will be recorded simultaneously with the recording of the baccalaureate degree. (from the College Administrative Manual, Sec 411, addendum of April, 1982)

Download and fill out the English Minor Application.
(Acrobat Reader Required...click on the button below)

--or--
Complete an application form in the
English Department office (FOB 32).

If your application is approved, meet with the minor advisor to plan your courses from the choices listed above. If you have already taken some of these courses, make sure the minor advisor records them. If you have good reasons for wishing to deviate from this list of courses, consult with the minor advisor.

Make sure you maintain at least a C average in the courses you take for the minor. At least two-thirds of them must be graded courses, and at least one-half must be completed in residence.

If you want more information, or want to begin an English minor today, you should see an English department advisor for the minor program. (Consult English Department for current list of minor advisors. Call 765 2596, or e-mail us).

Note: this is the seventh edition of the English Minor pamphlet.

Here are some of the fields English majors enter. Most of them are equally appropriate for graduates with an English minor, and one or more of them will complement the professional training you are receiving in your major.

Literary Work: novelist, script writer, poet, dramatist, book review service editor, translator, biographer, non-fiction writer.
Print Journalism: public relations, magazine staff, copy writer, promotion director, editor of a house organ.
Electronic Journalism: continuity writer, documentary writer, sports or news writer.
Advertising: copywriter, marketing and sales, news release writer.
Technical Writing: technical journalism, plans and specification writer, manual writer, correspondence manager, proposal and report writer/editor, special interest or technical magazine writer.
Business and Government: information manager, report and proposal writer, executive secretary, executive.
Education: instructional materials writer, teacher, proposal writer, children's book writer, adolescent fiction writer.
Editorial Work: newspapers, texts, magazines, manuscript reading.
Publishing: trade books, marketing and sales, special interest books, texts, micropublishing, magazines.

It is even more likely that your English minor can give you an advantage in a career in your major discipline. As a typical example, many engineers feel great uneasiness about writing. If the truth were admitted, they often have equal difficulty reading. The kind of problem-solving, task-oriented thinking which is important in engineering is different from the synthesizing, global thinking characteristic of the humanities. Yet engineers -- like other technical people -- must read and write constantly. Skillful and confident readers and writers are the ones who see how the technical ideas of their colleagues fit into larger schemes, and they are the ones asked to write the reports and hence represent the project to management and the rest of the profession. They are the ones asked to lead the project teams. Promotion comes to those who manage language well.

The value of work in English for technical jobs is attested by a recent survey of computer professionals (systems analysts, programmers, consultants, marketing specialists, etc.), who rated traditional English skills more important than math or science for success in computer-related jobs (Changing Times, May 1984, p. 27).

So far much of what has been said about the English minor has involved writing. Yet if you look at the list of courses for the minor, you will notice that most are in literature. What does the study of literature have to do with success in your career? The answer to this question reminds me of a story:

Once upon a time there was a man who had just invented a splendid new computer. He wanted to know just how far its capabilities extended, and so he queried his new machine (in Algol, or Fortran 3, or whatever), "Do you compute that you will ever think like a human being?' The machine set out at once to calculate its own abilities and possibilities, and after a long while it beeped and flashed this message on its screen: "THAT REMINDS ME OF A STORY. (Those who wish to investigate this fable further can read Gregory Bateson's Mind and Nature.)

Our message here is simple: English prepares you for work in the contemporary world. You will be surprised how much assistance an English minor can be for you in your major, and how helpful it will prove after graduation. An English minor makes an excellent program for anyone interested in the law, medicine, business, or government service. Specific information about preparing for careers in these and other fields is available from the English department office in a short article titled "English: The Pre-Professional Major." Every English minor should have a copy, for the information and advice apply just as much to minors. This article offers specific advice on designing your minor to advance your career and on presenting yourself and your education well to employers.

The minor in English is, above all, an education in the humanities: in the best that has been thought and said, in the life of the mind, in the great expressions and ideas of our species. The minor in English is not training, but education.