EE major and triple minor in cs, math and physics?

GShine_1989
Sun, 09 Aug 2009 14:36:46 +0000

You would be doing yourself a big favor if you took just a few graduate level courses instead of getting even one minor. Minors do not impress employers or grad schools. There’s barely any extra work involved in obtaining them (as you stated) so even if they ostensibly sound impressive, anyone who is actually familiar with them (i.e. employers, grad schools) will think you unnecessarily sacrificed depth for breadth (and very little of it). I’m in EE going into the device physics area. Quantum mechanics and condensed matter physics are pretty much a must in this area and it would be only one more 3 hr course for me to get the physics minor. I’m not gonna bother – no one’s going to care in the end and I’d rather spend a semester abroad, do an internship, graduate early, or take 500-level courses. All of these will help more.

The leadership certificate (I assume this is that i-program thing) is what you make of it. I went to one of the i-programs (free stay at a pretty nice hotel) and did not bother again because I wasn’t impressed by the quality of the people in it (it draws from all of UIUC; the non-technical majors have fairly low admissions standards here…).