<p>I’ve looked at Bates’s website’s description of its General Education requirements, and gotta admit it’s a little confusing, with the two concentrations, SLQs, and so on. I’d like to hear what current Batesies think of the Gen Ed.</p>
<p>Also, is it hard or impossible to double major at Bates with all the Gen Ed requirements? Can your second major essentially take care of one of the concentration requirements?</p>
<p>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).</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>I’m a double major, and since I planned early, everything’s working out just fine. Let me know if you have any more questions!</p>
<p>Quantitative reasoning? I thought there was no Math requirement?</p>
<p>Not necessarily math. Lots of courses have the “Q” attribute. I would say the easiest for non-math people are things like geology or astronomy.</p>