ringer05

None of the language majors are designed so that only native speakers will be able to keep up!

As for residence questions:

Students generally move in right before classes start and vacate the dorms the day after finals end. Since finals are self-scheduled, it's always possible to set your own, earlier move-out date and stick to it.

During the winter break (the time between the end of fall finals and the beginning of Wintersession), the residence halls close. There are a few exceptions made for international students who really don't have the means to go home during that break, but everyone else is expected to vacate. If going home isn't feasible, make friends with students who live closer to campus! Or save extra money each summer/winter/semester to pay for the plane ticket home.

verbivorous

How difficult is it to double major AND double minor? I'm interested in double majoring in English with a creative writing concentration and Philosophy/Art History and double minoring in East Asian Studies and Education/Art History, but I don't know how possible that is if some courses are only offered every other year.

FemmeFatale

^I don't think you're allowed to double minor and I don't think you can minor at all if you are going to double major.

"While a student must complete one major, she may choose to complete two majors or a major and a minor." ~ Page 26 of the Course Catalog or The Academic Program>>Online Course Information>>The Major

ringer05

FemmeFatale is right. Your three major/minor options:

1. One major, no minor.
2. One major, one minor.
3. Two majors, no minor.

Some majors even preclude double-majoring--not by policy, but by practicality. The IR major has nearly twice the requirements as the majors in any other department, for example.

advantagious

Well, it's not impossible to double major with one of your majors being IR. Difficult, and not advisable in my opinion (IR is a 14 credit major, plus two units of foreign language study beyond the minimum college requirement), but it is mathematically possible, especially if (the only one I've personally seen) that second major is a language. A generic major is usually 9 credits (some are more, but most are 9), so 9 (second major) + 14 (IR) + 2 (language) = 25 (and that's assuming you come in with the college's language requirement fulfilled). It would be 23 if your second major is a language, since those two courses would count toward your language major. Considering that you only have to have 32 courses to graduate, and that 4 courses/semester really is enough, IR + another major seems slightly insane. But it's not impossible.

As far as vacating the dorms, it was 5 pm one day after the last day of finals for winter break (ie the last day of finals was a Thursday, and you had to be out by 5 pm Friday evening ($25/hr for every hour you go over). For summer break, the last day of finals is next Monday, and all but the seniors have to be out by 5 pm Wednesday (so two days later--and again $25/hr fine).

As far as Thanksgiving travel, most people do leave. My roommate, who was from Oregon, elected not to fly back, but her siblings live on the East Coast and her mother flew out and they all had Thanksgiving together. However, people do stay, so you wouldn't be totally alone on campus. One thing to consider is that if your travel plans get messed up over Thanksgiving break it might hurt you academically. This happened to me--my flight back to Boston was canceled and because of the Thanksgiving travel crunch, I was unable to get another flight back for two days (and I live in Chicagoland and was flying out of O'Hare). This caused me to miss one meeting of each of my classes and set me back especially in my math class. Because Thanksgiving is only 3 weeks or so from the end of the semester, I found it very difficult to catch back up in math and I do think my grade suffered somewhat in that class. That's not to say that I regret going, or that I won't go home next year, but I'm just throwing it out there as something to think about.

advantagious

Also, verbivorous, consider that an English major w/ creative writing concentration is a minimum 12 unit major. An Art History major is 9 units, as is Philosophy. So those either of those double majors is a minimum of 21 units, which is a good amount (consider the fact that if you are passionate enough about something to major in it, you will probably want to take more than the minimum amount of courses. Art History is a 6 unit minor, while Philosophy and Education are 5 unit minors. East Asian Studies does not have a minor, only a major (because it is an interdepartmental major, which normally (always?) do not offer a minor option). If you are really set on English w/ creative writing concentration, I personally would encourage you to minor in one of your other interests, although you certainly could double major.

calilatin

D's-Dad....
Thanks for asking the same ???s that I too was concerned about. My daughter and I are also from Sunny Cali and we were wondering how to go about our shopping and planning our trip. I plan on coming the Friday or Saturday before Move-in day (Monday) to tour and shop in Boston and plan to leave on Tuesday. To offset our expenses, we will be staying at a low-end hotel. How do you feel about your girl moving so far away? Mine got in to Berkeley and USC and had the toughest time making her decision(although her #1 choice was always Wellesley). It just seems to be getting harder the closer we get to August.

***Questions for a current student at Wellesley....

1. If you take intersession classes, will they allow you to stay on campus?
2. Should we wait to shop in town until after we have seen the dorm?
3. Are the students scheduled to do anything on the 26th (Aug), or can they take the time to shop?

Thank you!!!
-Mom

D's-Dad

Calilatin,
Yeah, it was a touch choice to make, but like you my daughter too had Wellesley as her first choice, she too got into Berkeley and UCLA. She was particular about small class sizes. It will be a big change for us, hopefully the experience will help her become strong and successful in life.
Regarding the move-in day, we too are planning to be there a day earlier and stick around till Tuesday. The school hasn't sent out an agenda for 2008, but if its going to be similar to 2007 (http://www.wellesley.edu/FirstYear/P...rentsguide.pdf) then Monday seems to be a full day, but if you have already done the campus tour during the Spring Open Campus, then we could skip most of it and use it for shopping. The classes start the following Monday, so not sure what happens during the rest of the 1st week. People have suggested that we wait till we get the dorm to do the shopping.
-D's Dad

calilatin

D's Dad:

My daughter's main reason for choosing Wellesley is the same as your d's. She didn't want to fall in the cracks. When we went to W's open campus my d was told she would be in daily contacts with her professors via email. There's no way u would get that at Berkeley. As Oprah said about her "step daughter"...(not a direct quote)..she went to Wellesley a naive girl and came back as a strong woman. They will have stong, positive, and interesting women to interact and learn from! Thank you for the move-in tips! Maybe we'll see you on move-in day.

verbivorous

advantagious,

lol thanks for pointing that out. i guess i'll just revise my dreams a little. why do you recommend the one major/one minor combo instead of a double major?

and if you don't mind, do you think you can explain what it takes to complete 21 units?

advantagious

To calilatin,

1) For intersession (Wintersession at Wellesley..it has that special ring ), there is approx. a one week period where really only international students are allowed to stay on campus due to the distance they would have to travel. Last year this was from about Fri. 12/21 to Wed. 1/2 (so a week and a half). Finances aside, most people would want to go home for at least a week at winter break anyways. Besides that, students are able to remain on campus during Wintersession. Last year there was no fee for Wintersession, and I imagine it will be the same next year (although I don't know). Prior to that the fee was $100, still quite reasonable.

2) When you shop is really up to your personal preference. Sometime around early July is when you get your housing assignment, including your roommate(s) names(s). Then you will be able to post here and look at the website that Wellesley has set up to start to figure out how big your daughter's room may or may not be. I certainly would not buy anything big until your D talks to her roommate (example: there are definitely some rooms in which two fridges would take up too much space (I am having that problem right now with my room next year) and even then maybe not until you arrive here and actually see the room. Consider the fact that you are NOT allowed to move in early, ie you cannot move in before Monday. On the other hand, for the purposes of shipping and the like, it would probably make more sense to simply pack clothes and your d's computer and stuff like that and wait to buy bedding and towels and stuff once you get here.

Important note: The school sets up ways in which incoming first-years can ship themselves boxes and have them delivered to the dorms in those first few days. So that is a viable option (and one that people took advantage of).

3) I'm assuming the 26th, which is a Tuesday, is the day after you move in. On this day during my orientation, a bunch of things happened, but the only thing that was more or less required was a meeting to discuss our campus email system in the morning for about an hour and a half (it's much more extensive than just email, but too hard to get into here). Other than that, your daughter would be mostly free to shop. Not to be overly blunt, but I will say that I highly recommend that parents get out of town as soon as possible, because I really do think it is helpful for the students to get in the swing of being on their own at the same time as everybody else. The school thinks so too; they politely give parents the official heave-ho Monday late afternoon/evening. That's not to say that sticking around for one extra day to tie up any loose ends is a big deal, but yeah...don't be that one mother who keeps popping up during the week in the dining hall long after all the other parents have left!

advantagious

verbivorous, I recommended major + minor for you vs. double major simply because of how intensive English w/ the creative writing concentration seems to be--again, a minimum of 12 units. Coming from the perspective of someone who is considering double majoring in two 9-unit majors (econ and math), which means 18 credits altogether, I find the idea of spending 21 credits MINIMUM on two majors (12 + 9) daunting (I'm finding the idea of 18 credits min. daunting personally). I say that it is daunting because it takes 32 credits (1 credit = 1 class, usually) to graduate, which is 4 classes/semester for 8 semesters. Although people do take 5 (and, when they are really brave/crazy, 6) classes/semester, believe me when I say that you are unlikely to feel underworked with 4 classes/semester. This means that if you double major in English w/ creative writing and another 9 credit major, most semesters you will be taking 3 courses towards your majors. That leaves you only one "free" course a semester.

Now consider the fact that you have distribution requirements to do. English generally fulfills the Language and Literature distribution requirements, with a few classes that fulfill the Arts, etc. requirement. So let's be generous and say that you fulfill both of those requirements with your English major. Art History also fulfills your Arts, etc. requirement, so that double major only fulfills 2 distribution requirements. Philosophy fulfills Religion, Ethics and Morals or Epistemology and Cognition (or, in a few cases, historical studies). So let's take the best case scenario and say that you double in English w/ creative writing and Philosophy and are able to fulfill your Language & Lit, Arts, Religion, Epistemology and Historical Studies distributions without taking extra classes outside your major (unlikely, frankly, but possible). So what are you left with? You would still need to fulfill your language requirement, your Social and Behavioral Analysis requirement, and your Natural Sciences and Mathematical Modeling requirement (3 courses). That could mean anywhere from 4 courses (if you come in with your language requirement fulfilled) to 8 courses (if not). Which means anywhere from a minimum of 25 to 29 courses that you have to take. See how that becomes slightly daunting? If you double majored in English and Art History, you would have anywhere from 6 to 10 classes to take to fulfill your distributions--so 27 to 31 courses out of your necessary 32. Eeep! Now, it's not like you don't have control over which courses you take to fulfill your distributions, or specifically which courses you take towards your major (although of course there will be required courses), but still. Kinda daunting.

I hope this makes sense. It is certainly not impossible to double major in English w/ creative writing and another 9 unit major, as I just demonstrated, even if you come in with no distributions fulfilled, but it would take careful planning and would probably not allow you to go incredibly in depth in either of your majors. For example, I recall a student who was an English w/ creative writing major saying that she took 18 courses towards her major and wrote a thesis (I am not sure if that counts in the 18, but either way). My own father did something similar with his architecture courses when he was an undergraduate. That's not to say that you won't get anything out of the major if you only do a minimum of courses, but I'm just pointing out that if you decided to double major you may not have much of a choice about going more in depth in one of your majors.

jacinth_ambrose

Verbivorous,

My advice to you: Relax! Enjoy your last summer before college! Be outdoors in the sun! Hang out with friends you won't see again for several months!

There is no need to plan out your major(s) and/or minor for your entire college career. In fact, I'd highly recommend against it. The quality and type of academic work that you'll be asked to do at Wellesley will be different from that required of you in high school. At this time, it's nigh on impossible for you to gauge what you can or can't major in because you haven't experienced any classes yet. Not requiring students to declare their majors until spring of their sophomore year gives time to try out different classes and departments and get a sense of how much and the type of work involved in different majors. advantagious does a great job of outlining the numerical scenarios of double majoring, but only after taking a few courses in departments of your interest will you have a sense of how great a match might be. Fulfilling 21 credits with the majority coming from the sciences is a VERY different experience than having credits with the majority in the humanities.

For example, I had several friends who came into Wellesley attending to be pre-med, but quickly found a) they weren't up to the amount of science/math that it required, and b) found other subjects that they absolutely loved. Another student came in intending to be an economics major (a popular thought for first years), but didn't enjoy her econ 101 class as much as she thought she would. Not because of the professor, but she just didn't enjoy the subject matter like she thought she would, not to mention all the problem sets! She ended up being a Philosophy major - she fell in love with the department and the profs there.

Come to Wellesley with an open mind. Really. There are over 1000 courses offered. Don't be afraid to try new subjects, maybe stretching a little bit outside your academic comfort zone.

WendyMouse

I agree with j_a. It's great to have a direction, but be prepared to find something that you love that will surprise you!

Grace

For students from far away -

It's great to shop near school once you have a better idea of what you need, but don't forget to fill up extra space in your parents' luggage with your things for the trip East.