I plan on double majoring but don’t know how good the programs are.
My son is double majoring. He started out with Math & Econ but found he preferred Philosophy to Econ,so he switched to that in his junior year. The department wasn’t a problem and I understand Econ is a popular major at Bates. He just decided it wasn’t for him.
My son graduated in 2015 with a politics major and history minor. Excellent Politics department. He also took several Econ classes and had many friends who were Econ majors… It’s an excellent department and well regarded nationwide.
By faculty publishing, the economics department at Bates places an impressive 14th out of those at 197 generally comparable colleges.
(“Economics Departments at Liberal Arts Colleges,” IDEAS.)
Both Economics and Politics are popular majors, maybe the two biggest on campus. In my experience, both faculties are good teachers and will help you as much as they can. But both departments have big classes so you not get as much one on one as in other departments. I have taken classes in both but I know Politics better.
The Politics major has few requirements and the electives usually don’t have pre-requisties. The classes are usually not too math intensive, If you put in some effort, it isn’t hard to get an A.
Econ classes are very math intensive. If you major, there are a lot of requirements and you can’t take the best electives without having taken a bunch of pre-requisites. The classes are hard and most students have to work hard to get a B.