Minor in English

Our students become accomplished writers, clear thinkers and careful readers who can employ those skills in a wide range of satisfying careers and to a host of complementary majors.

With a minor in English, you’ll gain training to write clearly, think critically and read carefully. We believe studying English cultivates humanistic and global empathy, and empowers students to be engaged citizens who help advance the world’s societies and cultures. The skills students develop from this minor complement a variety of majors, including business, French, history, philosophy, theatre, and women and gender studies. 

  • Learn to write clearly, think critically and read carefully
  • Practice articulating your original ideas, both in speech and in writing
  • Complement your undergraduate studies with a minor

Learn from diverse, award-winning faculty, including Fulbright winners, a National Endowment for the Arts fellow, a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow and Professors of Distinction

Grow your expertise in small classes with faculty who will get to know you

We offer many labs and centers in specific areas of interest for you to engage with other students, including the Media Archaeology lab

Be successful.

A minor in English allows you to enter the workforce with skills that employers need, including critical thinking and communication.

 

Broaden your employment possibilities with additional knowledge and skills gained from a minor

 

Editor, educator, technical writer, social media manager, content manager and author are common opportunities to apply this minor

 

Work in education, publishing, law, business and the nonprofit sector

Academic Plan & Requirements

To earn a minor in English, students must complete a minimum of 18 credit hours in English courses.

Community & Involvement

We offer students many opportunities to network with peers and faculty, further their studies, and get the most out of their undergraduate experience.

Be inspired.

The English department has an extensive list of alumni who have worked in a variety of fields across the globe.

Some alumni of the program include:

('86)
Co-founder of the Boulder International Film Festival, now in its 14th year.

('00)
A lawyer with the law firm of Lightfoot, Franklin & White LLC and a former associate justice of the Supreme Court of Palau.

(PhD'64)
A successful science-fiction writer from 1928 to 2005. He was known as the "Dean of Science Fiction," and was named the second Grand Master of Science Fiction by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 1976, and inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1996. He is credited with inventing the term “terraforming” in a 1942 short story.

Luis Alberto Urrea

(MFA'97)
A Mexican American novelist and professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois Chicago. His memoir, Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life, received the American Book Award in 1999, and his nonfiction book The Devil’s Highway: A True Story was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

('07)
A multi-Platinum recording artist and co-founder and member of the electronic pop duo 3OH!3.

(MA'12)
A poet and Fulbright fellow who teaches in the MFA program at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.

Leather Storrs

('92)
A Portland, Oregon-based celebrity chef and co-owner of Portland’s Noble Rot restaurant.

(MA'82)
An Australian author who has received the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and Orange Prize, and whose work has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

News & Stories

College of Arts & Sciences magazine cover