<p>I had a couple questions to which I couldn't find the answers on the Middlebury site.</p>
<p>First, how difficult is it to double major at Middlebury? I read the essay by the president of the college, which said that he disagrees with the concept of double and triple majors. However, I think a double major is something in which I'm very interested. I think Middlebury calls them joint majors; is that the same thing?</p>
<p>My other two questions concern research. Is it possible to conduct research in non-science areas? For example, if I wanted to do a research project on new (or old) themes in literature, would I be able to weave that into the curriculum?</p>
<p>And lastly, I don't intend to be a history major; however, doing some degree of historical research seems very appealing to me. It'd basically be just investigating some phenomenon. For example, I read a kid's findings about the origins of certain national parks, and thought it would be fun to do something like that. Is it possible to do history research without being a history major?</p>
<p>Thanks so much. I hope I didn't sound like I was rambling.</p>
<p>On the second question: the College has a nice program (supported by the “undergraduate collaborative research fund”) that allows faculty from outside the sciences, to work closely with students on their research projects. On the first: triple majors were voted out by faculty, but double majors are popular, especially for some disciplines (languages + a social science or art history; poli sci and econ; etc).</p>
<p>My understanding of the President’s point about double majors is that a student can use most of his/her course opportunities fulfilling the requirements for the two majors and not have time to dabble in anything else. A minor, on the other hand, requires fewer courses and leaves a little more time to experiment in other fields. But if a student wants to spend almost all of his or her time with two specialty areas, it’s certainly workable.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies! And I completely agree that triple majors are too much. I’m not convinced at all that double majoring is right for me; I just wanted to keep my options open. And research there seems to be tops.</p>
<p>I saw something else that caught my eye: the Monterey institute. Apparently you can get a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in 5 years. Do you just take classes during the summer at Monterey in order to make up for shortened year, or is just an extra year of school after the bachelor’s?</p>
<p>The faculty at Monterey and those involved in the international curriculum at Middlebury agreed upon courses for students to take while at Middlebury that “count” toward the M.A. or at least prepare students well enough to do one more year of coursework for the second degree. That means no extra courses in the summer and students can do the dual degree program in four regular academic years plus one year at Monterey.</p>