Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

Your interests may not fit neatly into a single discipline. The Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences individual minor at Colorado School of Mines gives you the flexibility to design a coherent course of study that aligns with your goals while complementing a technical bachelor’s degree. Housed in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) department, this minor lets you shape a focused academic pathway that adds context, perspective and communication strength to your engineering or science education. 

This minor is a strong choice if you want to explore questions about people, culture, policy or ethics in a way that directly supports your technical interests. It signals initiative and intentionality to employers by showing that you can define goals, build a plan and integrate ideas across fields.

Program Overview

The Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences minor allows you to work with faculty to create a customized set of courses drawn from across the department. Your plan is designed to be academically rigorous and thematically connected, rather than a collection of unrelated classes. 

This minor supports the applied, problem-solving mindset that defines the institution. You will strengthen skills in critical thinking, writing, analysis and synthesis while tailoring your coursework to topics that matter to you. When you graduate, you bring a broader perspective and clearer communication skills to technical teams and leadership roles.

Program Design and Options

The individual minor in Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) allows you to build a focused course of study around your interests and academic or career goals.

• Customized focus: Choose 18 credits of HASS restricted electives that form a coherent area of study. Your focus might support a specific goal, such as preparing for law or medical school, or explore an area of interest such as ethics and technology, policy and society, communication or cultural studies.
• Faculty-advised plan of study: Design your minor in consultation with a HASS faculty member who will help you develop a clear rationale for your area of focus and select courses that create a cohesive, academically rigorous program. 

Major/minor pairings

Mechanical Engineering

• Mechanical engineering covers a wide range of systems like energy, manufacturing and robotics. Pairing it with the individualized HASS minor lets you add focus areas like business, policy or communication, helping you move into leadership or management roles where both technical and people-focused skills matter.

Computer Science

• Computer science focuses on software, data and emerging technologies like AI. The individualized HASS minor complements this by allowing you to study ethics, law or policy, helping you better understand issues like data privacy and the societal impact of technology.

Environmental Engineering 

• Environmental engineering addresses challenges like clean water and sustainability. Adding the individualized HASS minor lets you explore policy or social factors, making you more effective at designing solutions that work in real-world environmental and regulatory contexts.