While the faculty believes that each student should be essentially familiar with many fields of liberal learning, it also believes that a student must choose a field of special concentration—a major—to gain the advantages that come from studying one academic subject more extensively. This major field occupies at least eight credits of the student's College work and may be related to an intended career following graduation.

Students must successfully complete all prescribed work in a major, including a senior thesis or senior project, as determined by the major department or program. Students may complete a maximum of two majors. Completion of more than one major requires fulfillment of all major requirements, including the thesis, senior project, and/or the comprehensive examination, in each academic department or program. Students who wish to pursue three majors must petition the Committee on Academic Standing for approval. This petition must include justification for the exception to the rule not allowing more than two majors and written support from the chairs of each of the three departments or programs in which the student intends to major. In the event a major is added after a student matriculates, that major’s availability to current students will be outlined in the requirements for that major.

Departmental and interdisciplinary program majors are offered in the following areas:

• Africana*
• American Studies*
• Anthropology
• Asian Studies*
• Biochemistry
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Chinese*
• Classical and Medieval Studies*
• Dance
• Digital and Computational Studies*
• Earth and Climate Sciences
• Economics
• English
• Environmental Studies*
• European Studies*
• French and Francophone Studies
• Gender and Sexuality Studies*
• German
• Hispanic Studies
• History
• History and Criticism of Art and Visual Culture
• Japanese*
• Latin American and Latinx Studies*
• Mathematics
• Music
• Neuroscience*
• Philosophy
• Physics
• Politics
• Psychology
• Religious Studies
• Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies
• Sociology
• Studio Art
• Theater

Majors marked with an asterisk (*) above represent majors that are interdisciplinary in nature. These programs are administered by a committee of faculty from within the program and from other academic units within the College. 

Individual Interdisciplinary Major

In addition to established departmental and program majors, a student may propose an individual interdisciplinary major, should that student discover a well-defined intellectual interest that crosses one or more boundaries of the established fields of concentration. An individual interdisciplinary major involves a detailed program of study with courses drawn from at least two departments or programs but only one senior thesis and/or comprehensive examination.

Guidelines and an application for the individual interdisciplinary major can be found on the Office of the Registrar and Academic Systems website. Proposals for interdisciplinary majors must be submitted to the Office of the Registrar and Academic Systems for approval by the Curriculum Review Committee by March 1 in the sophomore year. Proposals must include a faculty advisory board of at least three faculty members who have agreed collectively to act as major advisor. One of these faculty members also serves as thesis advisor unless the student's program includes a senior seminar instead of a thesis. The student provides a list of appropriate courses to be included in the major. The student with an individual interdisciplinary major graduates with a major in Interdisciplinary Studies.

Engineering Major

Students interested in engineering may participate in the College's Dual Degree Engineering Program, in which three or four years at Bates are typically followed by two years at an affiliated engineering school. Recommended course sequences vary according to each student's particular engineering interests; curricular guidelines are available from the Dual Degree Program faculty advisor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Dual Degree Program majors complete all General Education requirements except the third-level writing requirement [W3]. If a student pursuing the Dual Degree program completes a second major as their second area of study, they may need to complete a thesis or capstone as part of that major’s requirements.

Upon completion of the five-year Dual Degree Program, students receive an undergraduate degree from Bates in Engineering and a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from the engineering-school affiliate.