Schools with flexible (but not nonexistent) core requirements

sunmachine
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:16:42 +0000

Keil said: “My personal definition of “flexible” core requirements is the ability to easily “sub-specialize” (second major, multiple minors) in fields unrelated to the first major.”

^^^Bates pretty much requires you to do this. But I think you have to decide your major and your sub-specialties early on in order to get everything done in four years. I think this would be great for those with diverse interests who know what they want to do; not so good for the person who just wants to do a major and fill up the rest of the time with random electives.

Here’s how a Bates student described Bates’s version of flexible core in another thread:

"I’m a sophomore at Bates - the Gen Ed requirements can be a little confusing, but I’ll try to simplify them! Bates requires a “major plus two”: you have to have a major, and then two more things, either another major, a minor or a General Education Concentration (GEC: a clump of 4 classes that relate to each other in some way. For example, a GEC in Film and Media studies would be 4 classes relating to film; a GEC in The Ancient World might involve some history classes, Classical and Medieval Studies classes, etc.). These “plus twos” can be mismatched: you can major and double minor, major and double GEC, double major and minor, etc. Apart from that, there’s a science and math requirement: the SLQs. You have to take one science reasoning course (S), one science laboratory course (L), and one quantitative reasoning course (Q).

Double majoring can be complicated with the Gen Ed requirements: the best way to accomplish everything you want to is to plan early, and get requirements out of the way as soon as you can. The second major does take care of one of the “plus two” requirement, but it’s important to decide on either a minor or a GEC early, and get ahead on the SLQ’s, since a double major does mean two separate theses at Bates: usually, double majors write one thesis per semester their senior year, and you don’t want to have to take four classes to finish up requirements while you’re writing thesis."

Got all that?