Stating minor degree on CV

Question

At my institution, we are supposed to complete pre-requisite courses required for minor in a particular area and then apply for a minor degree in it. At this point I haven't applied for one, just because I couldn't take up the pre-req courses until now, but I definitely intend to in future. Is it appropriate for me state the minor degree under my current major in my CV if I have not officially started pursuing it?

Follow up question, should I even mention my minor degree at this point if it's not relevant to the research position I'm applying for? I believe that a minor degree rather than the area itself demonstrates students in a positive light of the pursuing what they like.

Answer 1

Minor degrees, are in fact, minor. They should not be front-and-center like your major. If the minor degree is totally taking the backseat, both degree-wise and research-wise, I'd maybe have a couple of words on my CV/resume, saying I minored in this and that would be it. You could say that you intend to pursue a minor in this subject if you haven't officially declared it yet, although again, it's really only a few words on a subject; I personally wouldn't list a minor that I haven't declared yet because in my mind, it could be seen as lying on the CV.

Now if you plan on using your minor to form the basis of future research work, then it may be worth listing/talking about on your CV. BUT ... if it's part of your research interests anyway, the majority of the talking about that should be done via your statement of purpose or recommendations, or maybe even any research you've done that may be related to that minor.

So in summary, you could say (intended) minor in this, removing the "intended" part afterwards when you actually declare it, but overall on a resume/CV it's only a couple of extra words and maybe only a big deal if you're applying for a relevant position; if not, you should have other things to talk about that are more related to what you're applying to anyway.

Hope this helps.