Minor

The ‘Minor’ is an important component of a new type of bachelor’s degree on offer from the Higher School of Economics, nationwide, since 2014. Unlike a degree based on ‘majors’ (that focuses exclusively on a single, core discipline), a degree of ‘minors’ consists of the core discipline and up to four interrelated, non-core disciplines.

For example, one of our Political Science students can gain additional knowledge in the field of international business or oriental studies if they choose these particular minors. Studying these minors will help the student gain additional skills outside of Political Science. A wide range of minors is offered to all our second-year BA students. Each has to choose a minor track.

A minor track:

• is studied in the second and third year of a bachelor’s degree;
• consists of four disciplines;
• each discipline is studied for two modules;
• accounts for 20 credits in total (each discipline is worth 5 credits);
• is included in the main part of the degree program (the credits for minor courses are included into 240 credits of the main educational program);
• comprises 1/12 part of the total workload of the program;
• each student is free to choose a track from a general pool of minors;
• the courses on a minor track are all taught on the same day. Currently, Tuesday is the “minor day”.

The educational program can recommend some minors to the students. As a general principle we do not prevent students from choosing any minor from the general pool. The only restriction is that for some disciplines there may be prior training required – prerequisites.

After visiting three «minor days» on a chosen discipline, the student has the right to switch to another minor.