Minor: What Is It?

During the period of 19-22 March 2018, every freshman student should choose a minor to join in the second and third years. HSE explains what is minor and how to apply.

What is Minor

The minor is an important component of BA degree on offer from the Higher School of Economics. A degree of minors consists of the core discipline (major) and up to four interrelated, non-core disciplines (minor).

For example, students majoring in Political Science 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 obtain 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 BA degree 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” for the 2nd year students and Saturday – 3rd year students.