Questions About Majoring and the Calendar

Hello I’m currently a sophomore in high school and am very interested in Middlebury. I’m wanting to major in foreign languages and was wondering how majoring in two languages would work. Also, I’m confused about the 4-1-4 calendar. What happens during that one month? Are you required to take classes during that time?

The “1” in “4-1-4” is winter term. During winter term, you take only one class that meets for a minimum of eight hours per week. You can can do an internship or study off campus.
Read this:
http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/catalog/winter

Daughter is currently a freshman and taking first year Italian. Even though most classes at Midd are taken by the semester (they last for one semester), her intro language class is a full year class with the winter (January) class required so she will be taking Italian for her (one) winter term class this year. I am not sure how the other languages schedule their classes throughout he academic year but this class definitely requires the full year commitment.

As far as I know freshman are required to stay on campus for their first winter term. And they are required to be on campus for at least one more winter term before graduation. But that leaves two “open” winter terms… they can choose to take a class on campus or they can pursue something else like an internship, study abroad etc.

Thank you both for your replies.
What about majoring in two languages at the same time. Is this able to be done? If it is possibl,e how challenging would this be?

yeah, my son studied Arabic and he too took his language for the entire year so that was his jan class
they also had language tables where you could eat a meal and the time you where there only arabic was spoken
helped pick up language much quicker

I’d get in touch with the language departments themselves, the answer might depend on the languages you are considering for a dual major.

As far as two languages, it can definitely be done. However, as intro languages do run a full year, you can only start one new language each year. If you’re taking a language in high school and place in to 0200-level courses, you can continue that language while simultaneously picking up a new language. For example, a friend took a few years of french in high school and placed into French 0205. She chose to continue with french and start spanish at the intro level in her first semester. Majors generally require 10+ credits (students take 36 credits before graduation), so it is very doable, albeit a bit intense