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Beyond Your Major: 5 Online Minors That Can Strengthen Your Degree

Your major may give you expert knowledge in a specific field, but today’s employers increasingly value professionals who can bridge disciplines and bring additional skills to the workplace.

One way to demonstrate that versatility and expand your academic experience is by pursuing a minor alongside your major. Adding a minor to your academic journey demonstrates a proactive commitment to your career development while creating learning opportunities to expand your expertise, build new connections, and explore interests beyond your major. The right minor can do more than complement your coursework. It can help you develop practical skills and specialized knowledge that enhance your value in the job market.

The College of Professional Studies at Syracuse University offers fully online minors in an accelerated format, making it easier than ever to add valuable credentials to your resume without putting your goals on hold.

woman on laptop typing

1. AI in Business Applications Minor

Best for

  • Business
  • Marketing
  • Communications
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Information Management students

What You’ll Learn

  • Artificial intelligence fundamentals
  • Business automation
  • Data-driven decision-making
  • Emerging workplace technologies

How It Complements Your Degree

By learning how to effectively use and evaluate AI tools, students can strengthen problem-solving, boost productivity, and gain valuable skills that align with the growing adoption of AI across today’s workplaces.

Career Advantage

Employers value professionals who understand how to leverage AI to improve efficiency, strategy and innovation.

2. Applied Digital Automation Minor

Best for

  • Information Technology
  • Business
  • Engineering
  • Project Management students

What You’ll Learn

  • Process automation
  • Digital workflows
  • Automation tools
  • Technology-driven problem solving

How It Complements Your Degree

This blend of technical and industry-specific knowledge empowers graduates to streamline processes, improve efficiency, and help organizations adapt to an increasingly technology-driven workplace.

Career Advantage

Graduates can differentiate themselves by understanding how technology streamlines business operations.

3. Cannabis Studies Minor

Best for:

  • Public Health
  • Policy Studies
  • Business
  • Environment and Sustainability
  • Social Science students

What You’ll Learn

  • Cannabis policy
  • Industry trends
  • Social and economic impacts
  • Manufacturing, processing & distribution

How It Complements Your Degree

As the cannabis industry continues to grow and evolve, so does the demand for professionals who understand its legal, healthcare, and business implications. Students can gain valuable insights, preparing them to contribute to a rapidly expanding field with diverse career paths.

Career Advantage

Students gain knowledge applicable to healthcare, government, compliance, research and emerging markets.

4. Organizational Development and Leadership Minor

Best for:

  • Communications
  • Education
  • Business
  • Sport Management
  • Social Science students

What You’ll Learn

  • Leadership principles
  • Organizational culture
  • Team development
  • Change management

How It Complements Your Degree

Leadership skills are valuable in virtually every industry, making them a powerful complement to any academic or professional path. Whether you’re managing teams, guiding projects, solving complex challenges, or driving organizational change, strong leadership abilities help professionals stand out and succeed.

Career Advantage

Students can develop management and collaboration skills before entering the workforce.

5. Project Management Minor

Best for:

  • Engineering
  • Business
  • Information Technology
  • Communications
  • Film students

What You’ll Learn

  • Project planning
  • Budgeting
  • Team coordination
  • Risk management

How It Complements Your Degree

Project management skills empower students to turn ideas into action and goals into measurable results. By developing project management expertise, students can build a versatile skill set that helps them drive successful outcomes and make an impact in any industry.

Career Advantage

Organizations increasingly seek employees who can manage projects, timelines and stakeholders effectively.

Why Choose an Online Minor?

Small Addition, Big Career Impact

  • Fully online coursework
  • Flexible 8-week format
  • Ability to complement nearly any Syracuse University major
  • Opportunity to build specialized, career-ready skills without adding another degree program

Discover how a College of Professional Studies online minor can complement your degree!

About Online Minors

College of Professional Studies minors are available to matriculated undergraduate students from all Syracuse University schools and colleges, provided they have the permission of their home school or college, are in good academic standing, and enter the program with sufficient time to complete the required courses, generally no later than the first semester of junior year. Declaration of minor requests are accepted on a rolling basis, and decisions are made on a space-available basis.

Why smart city megaprojects failed: Learning from the past and planning for the future

By Austin Zwick, Nathan Olmstead, Zachary Spicer

Cities, The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, September2026

Abstract

Smart city megaprojects routinely fall short of the utopian visions promoted by their creators, yet the failure of these projects has not been systematically compared across cases or grounded in a shared analytical framework. This paper addresses that gap by examining ten smart city new-town projects from around the world, including Songdo, NEOM, Sidewalk Toronto, Masdar City, and others, at various stages of development, construction, suspension, and abandonment. Drawing on literatures in high modernist planning, megaproject failure, splintering urbanism, and smart city critique, we develop a seven-dimensional evaluation framework organized into three reinforcing categories: conception and design (feasible, technological), governance and process (engageable, equitable), and viability and impact (financial, ecological, livable). Each case is scored on a four-point ordinal scale based on documentary evidence, enabling structured comparison across political systems, economic contexts, and geographic regions. Three findings stand out. First, engagement failures were the most universal dimension, present in all ten cases, regardless of regime type or project leadership. Second, technological failure was the least common, challenging the assumption that smart cities fail primarily because the technology does not work. Third, financial failure was present at the highest severity in every abandoned project, extending megaproject optimism bias theory to the smart city domain. The paper concludes with policy recommendations for incremental planning, early-stage participatory governance, equity-centered design, and independent regulatory oversight.

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English language program professionals negotiating Generative AI: action research in a community of practice

By David Patent, David Lind, Amy Walker, Olga Oganesyan, Jeff Jiang, Haley Berl, Tara Manion & Kelsey Gillette

Educational Action Research, Connecting Research and Practice for Professionals and Communities, August 2026

Abstract

Generative AI (GenAI) adoption in English language programs (ELPs) has outpaced training and institutional support. This practitioner action research (AR) study investigates how eight professionals in a university-based ELP navigated GenAI integration through structured inquiry within a Community of Practice (CoP) framework. Following Burns’s (2010) cyclical AR model and Whitehead and McNiff’s (2006) living theory approach, participants engaged in an AR cycle (January 2025-April 2026). Data comprised transcriptions of three recorded meetings and four researcher journals, analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Five themes were identified: implications of GenAI on professional practices, personal and professional identity, efficiency versus deskilling, ethics of GenAI use, and policies around GenAI use. Participants discussed instrumental, task-level problems alongside existential questions about authenticity, human relevance, and professional identity. The CoP developed shared repertoires, including commitments to transparency, verification as professional responsibility, and platform agnosticism, while individual trajectories ranged from systematic integration to persistent resistance. The study shifts research focus from individual perceptions to collective sense-making, extends the professional community beyond instructors, and demonstrates that GenAI integration in ELPs is not merely a technical challenge but an identity and ethical one benefiting from systematic collaborative inquiry through AR.

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The push to promote the smart city: Assessing the impacts of a government-led Smart City Challenge

By Austin Zwick, Jeffrey Biggar, Zachary Spicer

Local Economy: The Journal of the Local Economy Policy Unit, August 2026

Abstract

Cities worldwide continue to experiment with urban technology solutions to address urban problems. Smart city projects have recently emerged in North America, including Canada, but their governance implications on cities and communities remains not fully understood. This article is based on a post-hoc analysis of a pan-Canadian government-driven technology and innovation competition called the Smart Cities Challenge (SCC). The research explored the impact of the SCC across three areas: (1) municipal innovation and governance, (2) collaboration among public, private, and community networks, and (3) policy implementation within local government structures. The findings indicate that public smart city competitions do succeed in fostering strategic planning and community engagement in municipal governments, however local governments struggle to advance technology-oriented projects to the implementation stage without greater investment. For those that did, sustaining successes without further investment and capacity building. The study’s key contribution lies in revealing how the competition stimulated new governance processes, strategic planning efforts, and collaborative networks, while also exposing significant implementation challenges rooted in fiscal constraints, limited technical capacity, and the short-lived nature of competition-based incentives. The research highlights the promise and limits of government-led smart city competitions as tools for advancing municipal innovation in today’s constrained fiscal context.

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Something Wired This Way Comes: What Fracking Taught Planners That Data Center Communities Need to Learn

By Austin Zwick

Journal of the American Planning Association, August 2026

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) data centers impose the same externalities on local communities that hydraulic fracturing did a decade ago: massive water consumption, continuous noise, construction road damage, thin permanent employment, and fiscal mismatches that leave municipalities bearing infrastructure costs while states capture revenue through tax abatements.

Drawing on field work with municipal planners across five Marcellus Shale states, I argue in this Viewpoint that planners should treat data centers as heavy industrial uses and apply the targeted regulatory tools that fracking communities developed through hard experience. Outright bans invite state preemption; targeted regulation has proved durable. The analogy has limits, but the governance playbook transfers.

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