<p>Hi! I'm going in undecided (super ecstatic!) and I was wondering if anyone could give me a slight overview of most of the majors? Hardest? Most popular? Things of that sort!
I'm mostly leaning toward the social sciences and humanities but I'm open to anything. I'm definitely up for exploring and I would love to know where to start!
Thank you :)</p>
<p>There’s over 50! So a true overview from any one person is not too realistic…I always loved reading the course catalog though. It has a description of each major, and also tells you the major requirements. Here’s the online version: [Wellesley</a> College - 2012-2013 Course Catalog](<a href=“http://wellesley.smartcatalogiq.com/en/2012-2013/Course-Catalog/2012-2013-Course-Catalog]Wellesley”>http://wellesley.smartcatalogiq.com/en/2012-2013/Course-Catalog/2012-2013-Course-Catalog)</p>
<p>I double majored in Econ and Math. Economics is the largest (“most popular”) major–I believe it hovers around 100 majors/year, which is super really a lot considering that there are about 600 people in each class at Wellesley. Of course there are more than 600 majors, since many students double, but still. Other very popular majors are English, Political Science, and I think Bio. My year there were about 20 math majors; I would say 15-30 is a medium sized major.</p>
<p>The hardest major is the one you aren’t good at or interested in, haha! All courses of study at Wellesley are difficult. I worked really hard at my math major and only got low-end acceptable grades. I didn’t work AS hard at Econ (although I still worked plenty hard!), yet got significantly better grades (my Econ GPA is almost .4 points better than my math GPA). I am just better at Econ, plus I took my classes in a more logical progression than I did for math. Plus, I did better in my classes outside my majors than I did in either Econ or Math! I wouldn’t go back and change either of my majors, though. </p>
<p>Of course grading isn’t the only thing that makes a major difficult. For example, personal preference might find lots of reading and writing either more or less challenging than lots of problem sets or lab reports. I might argue that having to fulfill a lot of major requirements makes a major more difficult. For example, International Relations is an interdisciplinary major and requires 14 credits (in general 1 credit = 1 class), whereas most single department majors (like Econ and Math) require only 9 credits. On the other hand, there is a 6 course core that all Econ majors have to complete. Either one of these requirements might be a hurdle for some students seeking to complete an IR or an Econ major. These are just two examples that I am familiar with; other majors have structural challenges of their own. </p>
<p>Different departments “feel” different for sure. Besides Econ and Math I took courses in the Political Science, German, Art History, Music, and Geoscience departments. Econ and Poli Sci had the most type-A students. Math had the most close-knit/family feeling (actually not a super plus for me as I felt a bit like an outsider, although everyone was extremely nice!). Math is very stratified, as most of the majors come in at the 200 level, yet most students at the college never go beyond calculus (or want to go beyond calculus!). So above calculus pretty much everybody in math is either a major or a minor or maybe a science major. By contrast, many Art History courses don’t have prerequisites, so there was a nice mix of majors and non-majors even in a 200 level course. German has very few (like, 0-3) majors each year, which make it feel like more of a niche department. </p>
<p>We all have to fulfill our distribution requirements, so for the truly undecided student using your first year to do so goes along well with the kind of exploration you are talking about. I took classes in 6 different departments my first year (the usual course load is 4 courses/semester, so that’s 8 potential departments, I guess), and only completed 3 of the 18 classes I ended up needing for my two majors. I finished the other 15 in 5 semesters and was able to study abroad for a semester without using any of my abroad courses towards my majors. Lots and lots of people start and stop and explore and change their majors–there are many paths through college! </p>
<p>Anyways, that’s what comes to mind off the top of my head. It doesn’t flow very well but “majors” is a very open-ended topic! If you want to probe more/ask more specific questions I probably will have more to say–or hopefully someone else will!</p>
<p>I think the most popular majors are Economics and Political Science. English and Biology are also pretty common. I’d say that all of the majors are pretty challenging in their own way, so it depends more on your personal strengths. I’m a humanities person, so I don’t find writing essays too terribly challenging, while doing statistical analysis for my biology lab was difficult for me. The premed students in my lab, however, would talk to me about how they found the essays in their humanities classes to be really demanding and tough, so it varies from person to person.</p>
<p>Your first year, you’ll have the opportunity to take a wide variety of first year seminars. Also, there’s a writing requirement that can be fulfilled by a lot of classes, including introductions to majors like English and Art History.</p>
<p>I’d strongly recommend not worrying about picking a major during your first year. Just take what looks interesting and get some gen. eds. out of the way–I wish I’d had more time to take classes in departments outside my majors, like Religion and Art History. (And, of course, I have to encourage you to take classes in the English and History departments, since those are my majors. 
Let me know if you want specific class recommendations!)</p>
<p>Here’s a link to the course catalogue: [url=<a href=“http://new.wellesley.edu/academics/deptsmajorprog]Departments”>http://new.wellesley.edu/academics/deptsmajorprog]Departments</a>, Majors & Programs | Wellesley College - Wellesley College<a href=“Just%20go%20to%20a%20department’s%20page%20and%20click%20%22curriculum%22%20to%20see%20a%20list%20of%20classes%20offered.”>/url</a></p>
<p>I’d be really interested in hearing any and all thoughts on history as a major at Wellesley. History is my passion and I really want to major in it.</p>
<p>I love our History department, and I’m excited that you’re interested in the major! Do you have a particular interest in any historical eras or topics?</p>
<p>Typically, you need ten classes in the department for the History major. My area of specialization is medieval and early modern Europe, so I’ve taken a bunch of classes with Prof. Ramseyer (medieval history) and Prof. Frace (early modern Europe). Unfortunately, Frace left this year, so they won’t have another early modernist until Fall 2013. Other professors I like or have heard good things about include Grandjean (American history) and Tumarkin (Russia).</p>
<p>My D is a history major, and will be graduating in May. Started out as International Relations, but found the requirements to be a bit rigid, so switched to History with a minor in Middle Eastern Studies to have more flexibility in her course selection.</p>
<p>Wow thank you everyone! This was incredibly helpful :)</p>
<p>Completely agree with what’s been already said in this thread. Advantagious, I was Econ and Math as well. I dabbled in the sciences for a bit, but also really loved my Art History and American Studies courses. </p>
<p>You can’t really go wrong with any major at Wellesley. All the professors love to teach and are completely accessible to students (even nights/weekends and for that 3 AM last minute question right before the final exam!). What I love most is that even if you’re not typically “good” in a subject grade-wise but you’re passionate about learning the subject and taking more classes in that area, Wellesley professors really encourage you to continue on in that subject matter. This is especially helpful if you’re interested in the sciences/math as those areas see very few women go on in graduate school or in industry.</p>
<p>Will I be able to double major in Cognitive Science (linguistics concentration) and English and study abroad? I also want to learn a couple of languages. How do you fit it all in?</p>
<p>what would you recommend to someone who isn’t particularly strong in math or science to take to fulfill those distribution requirements? I’m looking through the course catalog, but I would love more takes on your personal experiences!</p>
<p>For the lab science requirement, popular choices for the not-too-scientifically-inclined are Astro 100 or 101 and/or Geosciences 101 or 102. Courses in Bio, Chem, or Physics are less appealing since you’re going to run into the science major/pre-med set. I took Geosciences 102; it was fine. </p>
<p>For math…there’s actually a lot of options. It kind of pains me, butttttttt I understand that not all students feel up to calculus. Math 101 and 102 are the non-calculus courses that fulfill the Mathematical Modeling requirement. Of course you can take calculus. If you’ve already taken calculus (like at the AP BC Calc level) there are a few 200 level math courses offered that do not require multivariable calculus. In the Computer Science department, CS 110, 111, 112, 114, 117, and 118 all count and don’t have any prerequisites. Also Astro 101 counts, but you can’t ALSO count it as a science. Gotta choose one or the other. I think those are the only departments that have classes that fulfill the math distribution, but still, that’s a lot more variety than you might expect.</p>
<p>pxrlee, I’m about to throw a lot of info at you because I went to Wellesley and am neurotic :). Don’t get overwhelmed, it’s just to show you that I think you CAN fit (almost) everything into your schedule. It’s definitely NOT necessary to plan your schedule out like this–I double majored and studied abroad and it all worked out fine. </p>
<p>SO, it looks like Cognitive Sciences is a 9 unit major, which is the norm (just means you have to take a minimum of 9 courses to fulfill the major). English is a 10 unit major. So that’s 19 courses accounted for. Then you have to fulfill the distribution requirements. However, from your majors you will knock out Language and Literature, Social and Behavioral Analysis, and Epistemology and Cognition without trying. You seem to be left with 5 distribution requirements: 1 Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video, 1 from EITHER Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy OR Historical Studies, and 3 units in Natural and Physical Science and Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving. If you take Neuroscience 100 as part of your Cognitive Sciences major that gets rid of a science unit. You also have to take a Writing 125 course, but some of them count towards distribution requirements, so you could get rid of another distribution that way. I’m super jealous of current first-years who could take this writing course about Alfred Hitchcock, NO FAIR :). [Wellesley</a> College - WRIT111](<a href=“http://wellesley.smartcatalogiq.com/en/2012-2013/Course-Catalog/2012-2013-Course-Catalog/Departments-and-Programs/The-Writing-Program/Writing-Courses/100/WRIT-111]Wellesley”>http://wellesley.smartcatalogiq.com/en/2012-2013/Course-Catalog/2012-2013-Course-Catalog/Departments-and-Programs/The-Writing-Program/Writing-Courses/100/WRIT-111)</p>
<p>Okay so by this point I’ve accounted for about 24 courses. You need 32 to graduate, so you have 8 whole courses to do what you want, weeee! (You can actually take more than 32 courses, but we’ll use that as your benchmark). You definitely have time to learn a language (also, you have to fulfill the foreign language requirement but with your interest in languages that will be fine). Fitting in multiple languages might be difficult depending on what you want to study and what background you have going in. HOWEVER, you can definitely go deeper in a language you have background in and at least do 101/102 in another language. Also if you study abroad in a non-English speaking country that can count for a lot of language-learning without being in actual language courses. So you can definitely get a lot, if not all, of the languages you want. Finally, there shouldn’t be any real problem with you studying abroad along with the rest of this; you can fulfill major and/or distribution requirements while abroad.</p>
<p>advantagious, thanks for the details! I was actually thinking about ASTR 101 to satisfy the math requirement. I am currently taking Calculus BC and really don’t want to take multivariable. I need two science classes, one with a lab. GEO 101 and 102 sound like a nice alternative to Bio, Chem, and Phys. I scored a 5 on AP Statistics so I am exempt from QR, right? I think Eng 120 satisfies the 1st yr writing requirement for English majors. Doesn’t the required Shakespeare class for English majors satisfy the Art, M,T,F,V req? There are lots of classes to chose from to fulfill the Historical req. So, I count 9 (LING) + 10 (ENG, includes Eng 120 1st yr and Shakespeare amtfv) + 1 (math) + 1 (science) + 1 (science w/lab) + 1 (historical) = 23 units.
Would it be hard to take ITAL 103 (Spring), ITAL 201 (Fall), and ITAL 202W (Winter in Rome, if offered)? I have no prior knowledge in Italian, but I am currently taking IB Spanish HL2. I’m pretty sure I’ll score a 5, 6, or 7 on the IB exam which fulfills the foreign language requirement; however, I still would like to learn a few more. Chinese is also top on my list. I hate not being able to understand my dad and grandparents.</p>
<p>Yes, apparently an AP Stats score of 5 <em>does</em> count for the QR overlay. I had no idea! You’re right about English 120/Writing 105, too. And Shakespeare does fulfill Art, etc. So that helps out a lot. </p>
<p>About science: you can’t take both GEOS 101 and 102. I found another non-Bio/Chem/Physics option, though: Environmental Science 101. Just FYI. </p>
<p>Taking ITAS 103, 201, and 202 (Winter in Rome, swoon!) seems super reasonable. At least in terms of scheduling–I knew many people who took them and those intensive intro language courses are legitimately intensive! It may not seem like it right now but a college class that meets 5 times/week is a big commitment when most classes meet only 2 or 3 times/week. That said, I had an acquaintance who started Italian at Wellesley, studied abroad in Florence and achieved a pretty high level of facility with the language. You still have time left over for Chinese (only used up 2 in-term courses on Italian); you might have to schedule a little carefully, though, since when you’re learning a language you want to schedule sequential courses. The only thing I don’t know about is this requirement, for the Linguistics concentration: </p>
<p>“Students will also be expected to demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language above the Colleges foreign language requirement (at an intermediate level or above).”</p>
<p>I just don’t know what that means–it seems like if you didn’t take any Spanish at Wellesley and didn’t get above 202 in either Italian or Chinese then you might not meet that requirement. That would be one of my first questions upon meeting with an adviser, just so that you’re 100% about what it means. </p>
<p>All this time in the course catalog is making me want to go back and do it all again!</p>
<p>Thanks advantagious! Thanks for the tip about GEO 101, 102 and ES 101. They all come with a lab component so I’ll have the freedom to choose. ENG 223 and 224 are the Shakespeare classes, one required for all English majors. They satisfy either the Lang/Lit or AMTFV requirements. I wonder if English majors can really count them under AMTFV? If not, then I’ll take an intro to photography or video class. Yes, I will need to ask about the foreign language requirement for the Linguistics concentration. I guess it really depends on the classes I can take while studying abroad.
If I may trouble you again, would you elaborate on the study abroad experience. My understanding is that students take a full load (4 classes). Typically, foreign language is one class. The others seem to fall under Lang/Lit, Historical, or AMTFV since you are immersing yourself in the culture of your host country. This seems to mean that English and CogSci classes are kind of on hold during study abroad? Second, are the study abroad classes (beside the language class) taught in English or in a foreign language. Is it program specific? For example, are all classes at Wellesley AIX taught in French, ECCO Bologna taught in Italian, etc. If so, language course fresh/soph year becomes important, in order to reach the intermediate level (200s) before going abroad during junior year.</p>
<p>I never thought about it, but individual departments really don’t have anything to do with how you do your distribution requirements, so I can’t imagine there would be a problem counting ENG 223/224 towards the major as well as towards the AMTFV requirement. </p>
<p>Study abroad experience really depends heavily on both the program and the student. Wellesley is very strict in that it will only transfer back 4 credits/semester. You can take more classes than that though, you just can’t get more than 4 credits. With permission from your department you can get major credit abroad, and with permission from the dean you can fulfill distribution requirements (one course could get you both but you’d have to have it approved separately). Whether you can <em>really</em> get major credit while abroad depends on your department. I think many English students study abroad in the UK and it’s easy to imagine how those students could get major credit. I have no idea if it is possible to get English credit while studying in a non-English-speaking country, but I did find this on the department website: </p>
<p>"[…] with the approval of a students major advisor, two courses taught within language and literature departments and related interdisciplinary programs and departments at Wellesley and other approved schools may be offered for major credit; these may include literature courses taught in translation or language courses at the third-year level or higher."</p>
<p>That suggests to me that you could get major credit for your course on [for example] Italian literature in Italy. </p>
<p>I have NO CLUE and can’t find anything on the Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences department about getting major credit while abroad.</p>
<p>Exactly WHAT your study abroad courses might look like is hard to say. I can tell you what I did, though. I studied abroad for one semester through the Wellesley-in-Vienna program, which no longer exists but was institutionally supported like the Wellesley-in-Aix program. To qualify for the program you must have at least finished German 202, so you are right that for certain programs a student must complete a particular level of language classes to qualify. Our first month in Vienna, we all studied at a language school to further our skills. This course was transferred back as a one credit German language course. Then we were enrolled in the University of Vienna. We all took a special course, taught by a University professor but only for Wellesley students, entitled Austrian Literature and Cultural History. </p>
<p>The rest of our courses were up to us. I took courses on Viennese architecture, Decision and Game Theory, and Industrial Economics. The course on Viennese architecture was completely in German. The Decision and Game Theory course lecture was in German, but had a practicum that was in English, and you could write your exams in either English or German (the exams themselves were written in English). Industrial Economics was in English. I will be honest–I don’t know that we were really “supposed” to be taking classes in English, although no one told us that we couldn’t. However, these were not special courses for exchange students–my classmates were overwhelmingly full-time University of Vienna students. It’s just that English is the international language for Economics and thus the students had to be proficient to maintain their future in the discipline. I also considered taking a math course that would have been taught in German, but I attended one class and couldn’t understand the professor OR read his handwriting and decided that it didn’t seem very wise :). </p>
<p>So basically, whether you take courses in your major(s) or not or in English or not while abroad is 100% dependent on you and your program. I will say that it is VERY nice not to have to depend on your study abroad courses for much. I didn’t use my study abroad courses for my majors or for my distribution requirements, and thus the administrative aspect was highly low-stress. Because of my AP credit I actually didn’t even need to get ANY credit from study abroad at all! I could have gotten credit for my Econ major, but I didn’t need it/it didn’t help me any in terms of fulfilling major requirements, so I skipped home with my four credits for the semester and called it a day. However, most students who study abroad DO need major/distribution credits, and they get them taken care of, so I am an unusual case. </p>
<p>Another point about study abroad: if you want to parlay your study abroad into a minor in a foreign language, you can’t just take any old class and get it to count. For example, my Decision and Game Theory class wouldn’t have counted towards a German minor, even if it had been completely in German, because it wasn’t specific to Austria at all–it just happened to be taught in German. On the other hand, the architecture course would have counted, because not only was it in German but it was also particular to Vienna. This didn’t apply to me, because I already was a double major and you can’t also have a minor on top of that, but it’s worth noting since some students think of picking up a language minor when they study abroad and it doesn’t just happen automatically.</p>
<p>For anyone else reading this: these are not the only types of study abroad that exist. Of course there are many programs in English-speaking countries, but there are also many study abroad programs conducted in English, but in non-English speaking countries. For example, there is a well-known math program that is in Budapest but is taught in English.</p>
<p>Thanks advantagious for your detailed response. Many things were confirmed.</p>
<p>What is the anthropology department like? Sociology? I don’t know too much about those particular area of study…</p>
<p>advantagious you are amazing, and if you are up to it, perhaps you can comment on my daughter’s plan to double major in Biology and Studio art. She is worried because there is almost no overlap between the two majors. She also wants to study abroad (either Biology or studio art, or both!), and she wants to play varsity soccer. It seems like something would have top give. She may be able to test out of the language requirement, and maybe math and biology intro classes.</p>
<p>ChicagoFire, seen in a certain light, the amount of overlap between majors is immaterial, as one cannot double count a course towards both majors. The actual challenge is the total number of courses needed to complete the two majors. A quick trip to the course catalog tells me that a studio art major requires 11 courses. Biology also requires 11 courses (9 in biology plus 2 in chemistry). These are hard minimums–you cannot exempt your way into a lower required total. So that’s 22 courses, which is a lot but not outrageously so. Including my study abroad I completed 20 courses in my two majors. Being able to exempt out of the language requirement would help a lot. </p>
<p>As is the case with us all, there are still distribution requirements to attend to. She will easily fulfill the natural science and lab requirements, as well as the Arts, Music, Theatre, Film, Video requirements. She will need to fulfill the Mathematical Modeling requirement (cannot be exempted by an AP score), the Language and Literature requirement, the Social and Behavioral Analysis requirement, and two courses from Historical Studies, Epistemology and Cognition, and Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy. So that’s 5 additional courses. Plus, the writing requirement, which I highly recommend your D take combined with something that will fulfill another requirement for her. I took Writing 107/Art History 100, which would be perfect for your D as she needs ARTH 100 for her studio art major. There’s also Writing 108/ARTH 101. </p>
<p>So your D can do everything she needs to do for her two desired majors in 27-28 courses. Even if she studied abroad and got NO useful credit (unlikely), she could still finish everything. Both studio art and biology profess to take transfer credit (study abroad is transfer credit), although Biology only accepts 2 transfer credits and Studio Art accepts 3. Given all her potential constraints it seems unlikely that she could study abroad an entire year. However, there are a couple of neat Biology courses that have study abroad field portions: </p>
<p>[Wellesley</a> College - BISC111T - SmartCatalog <a href=“http://www.academiccatalog.com%5B/url%5D”>www.academiccatalog.com](<a href=“http://wellesley.smartcatalogiq.com/2012-2013/Course-Catalog/2012-2013-Course-Catalog/Departments-and-Programs/Department-of-Biological-Sciences/Biological-Sciences-Courses/100/BISC-111T]Wellesley”>http://wellesley.smartcatalogiq.com/2012-2013/Course-Catalog/2012-2013-Course-Catalog/Departments-and-Programs/Department-of-Biological-Sciences/Biological-Sciences-Courses/100/BISC-111T)</a></p>
<p>and </p>
<p>[Wellesley</a> College - ES212 - SmartCatalog <a href=“http://www.academiccatalog.com%5B/url%5D”>www.academiccatalog.com](<a href=“http://wellesley.smartcatalogiq.com/2012-2013/Course-Catalog/2012-2013-Course-Catalog/Departments-and-Programs/Environmental-Studies/Environmental-Studies-Courses/200/ES-212]Wellesley”>http://wellesley.smartcatalogiq.com/2012-2013/Course-Catalog/2012-2013-Course-Catalog/Departments-and-Programs/Environmental-Studies/Environmental-Studies-Courses/200/ES-212)</a></p>
<p>Although there are a bunch of prereqs for the Lake Baikal course, so maybe not. </p>
<p>In the end, the scheduling is not too outrageous, even including study abroad. The part that is worth noting is that your daughter will be very busy. Any science major has to sink time in those labs. Additionally, studio art has a reputation for being a big time suck–logical if you think about it, as there isn’t necessarily a point when one’s work of art is “done”. It’s not REALLY any different from any other subject, where you could spend an hour or 10 hours or 20 hours on a paper or a problem set or a lab report, but it’s just worth mentioning. Playing a varsity sport is also a big time suck, although some people are “busy people” and do great having a lot on their plate. </p>
<p>Hope this was helpful–I’m feeling less than eloquent today!</p>