Questions

Your answer

Which minor did you do?

Personal Minor

What made you choose this minor?

I didn’t really like the idea of doing my minor in one semester but rather wanted to spread it out over the entire study. The personal minor allowed me to spread it out over 2.5 years, as well as I got to choose random courses that interested me rather than sticking to one study only.

What were the subjects you had in your minor?

Property Law, Global Development Studies, Diversity Management, Social and Institutional Change, Philosophy and Ethics of Business

What was your hardest experience during the minor course?

Taking a law course without any prior knowledge in law.

What was the best experience during the minor course?

That I got to choose courses that interested me rather than choosing a minor that has maybe 2 courses I am interested in and still having to take the rest.

Did the course meet your expectations? Yes, why/ No, why not

Mostly – I enjoyed most of the courses but also felt the majority was too easy and I could have learned more.

Which other minor did you consider?

None, except later I found one about sports and health but then it was too late

Do you think that your minor will be useful for your future career?

Yes, why / No, why not

Yes. The law course gave me an insight into how to work with legal documents, the development course explained the economic side of IR a lot, diversity management taught me a lot about cultures and the other two were very philosophical and gave me some potential theories for my thesis.

What would you say to future IRIO students who consider this minor?

- Inform yourself on the procedures, it is very different than for every other minor since there is no set program.

- Make sure to check the requirements to be able to take the course. The majority of those that I wanted to choose, I wasn’t allowed to because I wasn’t a part of the faculty.

- Apply early – the Board of Examiners can take up to 6 weeks to get back to you, in my case I had to start the block with 20 ECTS and then dropped the IR course as soon as my minor got accepted. Make sure to sign up for the courses even before you get accepted though, otherwise you can’t take them.

- Since this is a personal minor, you are basically free to take any classes, so really choose those that you think you will enjoy.

- Have a couple of classes as a backup plan. It might happen that some of the courses are not available anymore when you want to take them so then you need to reapply at the BoE.

If you did a personal minor, was it difficult to get permission to do it? Which steps need to be done?

For me it was very easy, it just took some time. I had to find the courses that I wanted to take, sometimes had to double check with the faculty whether I would be eligible to take the course and then made a schedule for the years ahead in which I showed how I was planning on structuring my courses. Then I wrote a paragraph on every course and explained how it would be beneficial to me and sent all that to the BoE. They took around 4 weeks until I got my positive response.

Ratings: Rate from 1 to 10

Was the minor doable? (1 very hard <-->10 very easy)

8

Was the workload less/the same/or more than the IRIO programme? (1 much less workload <--> a lot more workload)

3

How much would you recommend doing this minor? (1 not at all <--> 10 100% yes)

9