Academics
If you ask Bates graduates what they value most about their time here, as often as not they’ll say something like, “Bates taught me how to think.” Supported by a dedicated faculty, Bates students learn to explore broadly and deeply, to cross disciplines, and to question rigorously.
At Bates, students and faculty form a community of scholars who share a thirst for learning, drawing on the methods of the sciences, the patterns of logic and language, the study of societies, and expression in the arts.
A Bates education fosters intellectual inquiry and reflection, personal growth, and a commitment to the world beyond oneself. Bates offers students a rigorous academic experience in a collaborative and supportive environment.
Majors & Minors
Majors and minors both promote deep, immersive study in a particular discipline or field. A major is required and comprises between 10 and 14 courses. A minor is optional and requires far fewer courses.
All Bates majors culminate in a senior thesis or capstone seminar, a pivotal experience that challenges students to synthesize their prior academic work in original research or creative production.
M major | m minor
- Africana (M, m)
- American Studies (M)
- Anthropology (M, m)
- Art & Visual Culture (M)
- Asian Studies (M, m)
- Biochemistry (M)
- Biology (M)
- Chemistry (M, m)
- Chinese (M, m)
- Classical & Medieval Studies (M, m)
- Dance (M, m)
- Digital & Computational Studies (m)
- Earth and Climate Sciences (M, m)
- Economics (M)
- Educational Studies (m)
- Engineering*
- English (M)
- Environmental Studies (M)
- European Studies (M)
- French & Francophone Studies (M, m)
- Gender and Sexuality Studies (M, m)
- German (M, m)
- Greek (m)
- Hispanic Studies (M, m)
- History (M, m)
- Interdisciplinary Studies (M)
- Japanese (M, m)
- Latin (m)
- Latin American and Latinx Studies (M)
- Mathematics (M, m)
- Music (M, m)
- Neuroscience (M)
- Philosophy (M, m)
- Physical Education
- Physics (M, m)
- Politics (M)
- Psychology (M)
- Religious Studies (M, m)
- Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies (M, m)
- Russian (m)
- Sociology (M)
- Teacher Education (m)
- Theater (M, m)
*Engineering students participate in the 3-2 Dual Degree program, completing three years at Bates and two years at one of our partner institutions, including Case Western, Columbia, Dartmouth, RPI, or Washington University.
Facts
- 2,000 students
- 20 students in the average class
- 10-to-1 student to faculty ratio
- 100% of faculty hold highest degree in their field
- 100% of students complete a capstone or thesis
- 60% of students study abroad
- 31 NESCAC Division III teams
- 110 student clubs, open to all
- 160 community partnerships through the Harward Center
- 0 fraternities and sororities
- 4-week spring Short Term
- 109 acres on Lewiston campus
- 600 acres in Bates–Morse Mountain Conservation Area
Academics
Majors are offered by academic departments and interdisciplinary programs. Several offer a minor as well. Major study is designed to throw you headlong into the methods, practices, certainties, and mysteries of a field; they’re also designed to lead to great things, including but not limited to graduate or professional school, enlightened leadership, and making your own way in the world.
The Bates curriculum offers many options. You may design your own major. You may enroll in the Dual Degree Engineering Program: three years at Bates, plus two years at a top engineering school (Case Western, Columbia, Dartmouth, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Washington University in St. Louis). You may also minor in the following:
- Asian Studies
- Digital and Computational Studies
- German and Russian Studies
- Greek
- Latin
- Russian
- Teacher Education
To further ensure breadth in a course of study, most students take two General Education Concentrations (GECs — rhymes with “treks”), a group of four courses that add up to a sustained exploration of one theme.
Some recent GECs:
- Archaeology and Material Culture
- Bridging El Atlantico
- Chinese Society and Culture
- Considering Africa
- Diasporas
- Film and Media Studies
- Public Health
A GEC like Public Health includes such courses as:
- Biomedical Ethics
- Environmental Justice
- Epidemics Past, Present, and Future
- Health and Healing in Africa
- Health Economics
- Pathophysiology
Short Term
Our academic calendar is divided into two traditional semesters and one Short Term in late April and May. In Short Term, students take only one course, on a compressed schedule; they can also undertake internships or conduct fieldwork; a number of Short Term courses are conducted off campus. The result is a focused investigation of a single topic. A few recent Short Term courses:
- Building a Studio Practice
- Intro to Archaeological Fieldwork
- Life Course and Aging
- Shakespeare in London
- Understanding Cancer
The First-year Seminar
One of the first courses you’ll take, and a model for the work you’ll do in the next four years: You, a professor and a handful of your peers get together and dig into a specialized topic. Recent examples:
- Coastal Hazards
- History of the Brain
- International Cinema
- Judicial Power in the U.S.
- Religion and Civil Rights
- Revolutionary Writing in Latin America
The Faculty
Our student to faculty ratio is 10-to-1; there are 20 students in the average class; and every student works individually with a faculty mentor on their senior thesis — so not only will your professors know your name, they’ll also know where you’re coming from, where you want to go and how you might get there. Meals or coffee might be involved. Richly detailed letters of recommendation will almost certainly be involved. These are bright, accomplished, high-profile people whose priority is you.
Off-campus Study
About 60 percent of our students study abroad. We offer access to programs in more than 80 countries. Our faculty also develop and lead rigorous, cross-disciplinary Fall Semester Abroad trips.
The Senior Thesis
Our academic program starts with an intensive, often interdisciplinary first-year seminar and ends with an intensive, often interdisciplinary senior thesis. The thesis is meant to make a meaningful contribution to the storehouse of human knowledge; it is also often the first step toward a job or graduate study. A few recent theses:
- Disputing Development: The Politics of Progress on Kilimanjaro
- Embodying Music: What Feeling Can Tell Us About Musical Expression
- Galactic Dark Matter and the Cosmic Microwave Background
- Quack to Hero: The Character of the Doctor in the 19th Century
Research and Opportunity
We do not live in a bubble. Research, fieldwork, internships, civic engagement — we do them all, they’re academically demanding, and they bring us in to the world. A few examples: Our Purposeful Work Internship Program matches Bates students with selected employers and provides a stipend — i.e., money — to support them. More than 100 students receive research or creative fellowships each summer, to work with Bates faculty of elsewhere. At the Mount David Summit, our annual campus-wide student research festival, 250-300 students present poster sessions, research talks, panel discussions, and arts performances.
The Harward Center for Community Partnerships develops or supports an astounding number of initiatives that combine rigorous intellectual work and hands-on civic engagement (an internship program at major museums for Art and Visual Culture students; a politics seminar on immigration that includes firsthand research at the California/Mexico border; a community-based senior thesis about converting wood waste into fuel). It also oversees the college’s Bonner Leader Program (scholarships for students who serve and lead), and gives grants to faculty, staff and students who think of innovative ways to work with communities across the street and around the world.