Minoring in Philosophy

Every reason for taking a philosophy course is a reason for minoring in philosophy. While honing your critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving skills with one or two elective philosophy classes can help advance a wide variety of personal and professional goals, adding philosophy to your undergraduate program in a more significant way will allow for the time and practice necessary to develop them.

Philosophy covers a very broad range of academic and professional concerns: whatever your major, personal interests, or career aspirations may be, you can be sure that philosophy touches upon them in a meaningful way. A minor in philosophy provides you the opportunity to further explore the some of the deeper questions important to other disciplines. Along the way, you will also become acquainted with issues and figures of special interest to the discipline of philosophy.

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Getting the Minor

There's now more than one way to minor in philosophy! While the traditional way of attaining the minor is still available, we now offer an option for those with a particular interest in ethics. Here are some details on both options:

General Minor

If you want the flexibility of getting to try out a wide breadth of courses in philosophy, then you'll likely want to pursue the general minor. The requirements are straightforward:

• You must complete 15 credit hours (five courses) in philosophy.
• No more than six of those credits (two courses) may be below the 3000 level.
• You must attain at least a C- in every course.

Ethics Minor

If you find ethics particularly interesting, or if ethics would be beneficial for your other academic interests (and it often is!), then you may want to pursue our ethics minor. Here are the requirements in brief:

• You must complete 15 credit hours (five courses) of approved coursework.
• No more than six of those credits (two courses) may be below the 3000 level.
• No more than six of those credits (two courses) may be outside of philosophy.
• You must attain at least a C- in every course.
• You must take PHIL 2030: Introduction to Ethics.

See a complete list of the approved courses, along with the nuances of the requirements such as which credits you can use for which subjects, in the undergraduate catalog.

Minoring in philosophy is an excellent way to boost your credentials in another discipline. That being said, in order to reap the maximum benefit, you should consider pursuing a double major.