I want to go to Harding University, and double major in Youth and Family Ministry, and Linguistics.
However, they only offer Linguistics as a minor. I have looked at several other Christian colleges that are affiliated with the Church of Christ, and none of them have a linguistics minor, let alone a major.
Would it be possible to major in linguistics at Harding anyway? Say if I had special permission, or something? Or should I just minor in it, and try and go to grad school and major in linguistics? Or what? I don’t know what to do, please help!
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The College I Want To Go To Only Offers The Subject I Want To Major In As A Minor. What Should I Do?
Posted on June 4, 2013.
I would broader your college search basis. Expand your ideas. I’m sure other colleges have what you want.
Talk to admissions at Harding. Find out if they have a “create your own major” program. A lot of colleges do. If they do, then you may be able to create a major focused on linguistics, although it is likely that you may have to take some of your linguistics coursework at another college and transfer it back to Harding. Thing is, if Harding doesn’t offer a major in linguistics, they probably don’t have all the courses you need.
Another option is to look into what’s required to get into a few masters degree programs in linguistics. If you see that the minor will give you what’s needed, and you don’t need more than the coursework it involves, then you may be fine with just the minor.
Since you want Youth and Family Ministry as a major, you don’t really need to also major in linguistics. You can always minor in it and just take more courses than are required for a minor.
You can petition the school to allow you to major in it. Most universities have a program where students can create their own majors. You might be able to do it that way. If they don’t offer all the courses needed for a major, you could take some of the courses as a guest student at another university. You would do a semester or a year as a guest student there.
Getting a graduate degree in linguistics is also fine, especially if you plan to make use of linguistics in your career. Realize, though, that linguistics is the study of language – syntax, language development, and so on. It is NOT a major for learning several different languages. You can’t just take French and Turkish and Chinese and Swahili as credits towards a linguistics degree. If that is your intent, then minor in linguistics and just take whichever languages you’re interested in as electives.
Another option, if you plan to focus on a specific area of the world is to major or minor in the study of that area, such as Asian Studies or African Studies, where you learn about the people, culture, history and so on. Or you could major in Anthropology and take all the linguistics courses as part of that.