Elective minor

From 2024-2025, it is possible to choose an elective minor. This minor consists of 30 EC cohesive courses (in semester 1 and/or 2) and a think tank of 10 EC in semester 2 (LET-LETMI-DT13). In this think tank you will be working on a humanities-related issue. There will be several think tank assignments to choose from.

Your elective minor needs prior approval, on which you can find more in the procedure below. 

Are you considering an individual think tank (internship at an organisation/company or a research internship)? Keep the timeframe in mind. The individual think tank does not have to match the courses you took in your elective minor, but (ideally) it should match your major programme.

Possibilities

When selecting courses for your elective minor, you might consider:

  • 30 EC from one other study programme
  • 30 EC from an interdisciplinary package of a minor that was last offered in 2023-2024 or 2024-2025
  • 30 EC of sustainability education (courses labelled for the Sustainability Certificate in Osiris)
  • 30 EC from an existing minor or pre-Master's from another RU-faculty or university in the Netherlands
    (See for example the Arts and Heritage minor at Maastricht University)
  • 30 EC of courses from different study programmes, but with a clear shared focus or theme

Requirements

Create a cohesive package of 30 EC of courses from Bachelor's programmes. Please note the following.

Not allowed is/are:

  • Courses from your major programme or courses that strongly overlap with the content of your major programme
    For CIW/IBC students, this concerns Marketing (MAN-BCU2008) and Cross-Cultural Management and Communication (MAN-BCU345). For CIW students, this concerns Risks and Opportunities of Social Media (SOW-CWB3053).
  • Courses that were/are part of a previous or future diploma
    If you are following two study programmes at once, you may request exemption from parts of the minor (see the “additional information” header). If there are courses that you have already passed without completing the full study programme, you may select these for your minor, as long as they form a cohesive package of 30 EC together with your other chosen courses.
  • 15 EC internship
    As with the other minors, you are free to replace the elective minor think tank (LET-LETMI-DT13, 10 EC) with an individual internship, but the elective space in your minor (30 EC) must consist of courses.
  • Theme course (LET-LETMI-TH..) or 30 EC of a minor that is still being offered: if the theme appeals to you, register for the relevant thematic minor.

Please be aware that not all courses are open to students taking subsidiary courses. It is your own responsibility to check if this is the case for your chosen courses.

Procedure

  1. After the study guide is published in early July 2025, familiarise yourself with the possibilities and choose 30 EC worth of electives.
    Please note: Because not all faculties use 5 EC courses as the default, you may end up with more than 30 EC. The rule is that you can only select more than 30 EC if you cannot remove any courses from your package without ending up below 30 EC.
  2. Please check:
    1. if the courses you have selected are not part of your own major programme, or strongly overlap;
    2. if the courses you have selected are open to students taking subsidiary courses;
      Please note: You cannot select a course that is not open to student staking subsidiary courses. While processing your request, we assume that you have checked this; we do not check this for you.
    3. if the schedule allows you to take the selected courses (in July, you will only be able to check this for semester 1).
       
  3. Send out your request for your elective minor using the form that will appear below after 1 July 2025. Make sure to do this by 18 July 2025 at the latest. Enter the package of your first choice and briefly explain the cohesion between the courses.
    Please note: Requests containing selections such as “Course A or Course B” and “If Course A doesn’t work out, choose Course B”, cannot be processed. If you submit the form after 18 July, we cannot guarantee that you will receive a response before the new academic year starts.
  4. Register on time for all of your courses. 
    Please note: Other faculties may apply other registration deadlines and/or registration periods for courses. Because of this, it is important to check when the registration period for your courses takes place and register for your courses as soon as you have made your selections, even if you have not yet received a response.

Your request will be reviewed in terms of cohesion. If your selection is sufficiently cohesive, your request will be processed. This means that we will register you for the elective minor (via Specialisation) and add your selected courses to your Study Progress Overview. You must register for your courses yourself (see step 4).

Because the schedules of semester 2 are not available until later, you can submit a change request in December if needed. You can find the change form here.

If you need help making decisions or if you have other questions about the (elective) minor, please contact your programme’s student advisor.