Undergraduate minor in family social science
Preparing students for the future
Enhance your major and future career with an undergraduate minor in family social science. A minor will give you a fundamental understanding of parents, children, and families that will complement any career that works with people, from business to government to healthcare, law, and more. These minors will help you develop applied skills in case management, counseling, and financial counseling, as well as how to ethically and effectively work with communities.
Choose from four options:
If working in schools, clinics, social services, healthcare, or similar fields is your goal, you will need to connect with communities and work alongside families to co-create programs that work for them. The family and community engagement minor teaches you practical skills for engaging with families and community organizations. You will gain insights into the systems and policies affecting communities and learn how to collaborate with families to make a real difference.
In the first course, FSOS 2107: Preparation for Family and Community Engagement, you will learn how to work with families and communities by focusing on their strengths and assets. Through workshops and interactive activities, you will build concrete skills, including leading community discussions, mapping out community resources, and making community spaces more accessible. Plus, you’ll get an introduction to key nonprofit skills, like basic grant writing and program evaluation.
Within the coursework you will also learn about family strengths and cultural diversity, governmental policies and their consequences for diverse families, the impact of immigration on family relationships, and stressors that place families at risk across the lifespan (such as poverty, war/civil conflict, disability, social disparities/discrimination, and family separations).
The Family Social Science minor planning document can help you to plan your minor coursework. Questions? Please reach out to Kirsten Collins, departmental advisor, at coll0260@umn.edu
Career options
A minor in family social science from one of the top programs nationwide will complement any career path–from business to medicine, to law and public policy, to engineering and the sciences.
International opportunities
You have the option of fulfilling coursework or internship requirements on campus, in the Twin Cities, or during sponsored learning abroad programs, as well as national student exchange programs.
Questions?
Please contact us with questions:
Margaret Kelly
Director of undergraduate studies
deleh003@umn.edu
Kirsten Collins
Senior undergraduate advisor
coll0260@umn.edu