<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I have gotten into Haverford which has a great bio department. I am just not sure if that school is right for me. But all I've heard of Middlebury is its SUPER AWESOME LANGUAGE department. Can anyone explain to me the way the classes are selected, if there is a core curriculum, its system of attendance, and bascially all you could give me in order to change my mind from HC to Midd...</p>
<p>Thank you so much in advance!</p>
<p>There are some very helpful posts from panthergrad09 so you can hear from a recent graduate about how great the sciences are at Middlebury. One long post was on the “Why Middlebury” thread, I think, rather than one of the Midd science threads. Sorry I can’t do links! As to core curriculum, Middlebury has distribution requirements and you have to do 7 of 8 categories. So if you do both science and math you could skip Philosophy/religion, for example. I think an important thing to look at is size because Haverford is about 1400 students and Middlebury is about 2400 students. You might want to compare total numbers of science professors because more professors may mean greater variety of research topics going on. I always hear Midd science students raving about the research opportunities. Also socially I think 2400 makes a difference. Good luck!</p>
<p>bluepurple - </p>
<p>Click on Middlebury College above ([Middlebury</a> College - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/middlebury-college/]Middlebury”>Middlebury College - College Confidential Forums)). Then click on “search this forum” found at the top of the right side of the page. Choose “search posts” and put in the word “science.” As results, what you’ll get are posts referencing sciences at Midd. You can do the same kind of search with foreign language or whatever you want. Some won’t be exactly spot on, but you’ll find a great deal of what you’re looking for. </p>
<p>If after searching those, you have specific questions, I am sure people can be helpful. The required curriculum is pretty straight forward with seemingly lots of choice and flexibility. At the end of the day (or by May 1), only you can make the decision where you want to attend college. If you’ve yet to visit, I’d try to get that in there as well.</p>
<p>as previously mentioned, I have several posts about science at Midd, so I’m not going to re-iterate that. I just wanted to address the core curriculum question. There are two types of distribution requirements, one pertaining to cultures and one to subject. As Hitch123 mentioned, the subject distribution has 8 subjects, of which you have to do 7. The 8 are: science, deductive reasoning (aka math), philosophy/religion, art, language, history, literature, social analysis (sociology type stuff). There are so many choices in each of these that it’s not difficult to complete, and it’s a great incentive to try something completely different and out of your comfort zone. A lot of people discover a new passion by taking a random course that sounds interesting to fulfill a requirement. The second set of requirements are the culture courses. There are 4 categories, all of which must be fulfilled: africa/asia/latin america, europe, north america (US and canada), and comparative. There’s also a college writing requirement: students must complete two writing-intensive courses (aka “college writing”). A single class can count as each type of distribution, but one course can’t count as two credits in the same category. For instance, physics classes are often both science and deductive reasoning but each class can only be counted as one or the other (take two semesters and you can get both credits). Intro to world lit is college writing, comparative cultures, and literature, and it can be counted as all three, as they are in different categories. Hope that made sense. You’ll also have the core curriculum for your major, of course, and the size of that depends on the major. History majors have 10 (I think) required courses, while molecular biology and biochemistry majors have 15. My best advice for completing requirements is to try to get your distributions done early. That way, you can explore all midd has to offer, maybe find a subject that you decide you want to major in, and you’ll have your later years to focus more on your major and completing those requirements. It also leaves you with more options because you might find a class in your first year that you really want to take, and it might not be offered again while you’re at midd. J-term is also a great time to get requirements done. Sophomores and freshmen get first pick for J-term, so it’s not usually difficult to get a fun course. </p>
<p>Not sure what you mean by “system of attendance.” Professors don’t usually take attendance after the first week. Early on attendance is taken so they can learn people’s names/faces and to figure out the final roster of the course, as there are often waitlists for popular courses. After that, attendance isn’t taken, but most courses have a participation grade, so if you’re not there, your grade will suffer. But if you’re thinking you want to skip class all of the time, Middlebury’s not the place.</p>
<p>While the language departments are phenomenal, so is every departments at Midd that I’ve encountered. The languages are just so far ahead of everyone else, that’s what you hear about. A lot of places have great science/bio departments, but just because the first thing people think when they hear Middlebury isn’t bio, doesn’t mean that it’s not great.</p>
<p>Finally, if you’re not sure that Haverford is the place for you, don’t go there just because of the department. A ton of people change their minds about their majors, and you don’t want to be stuck somewhere that you don’t love. I knew in my gut what colleges were wrong for me, even though on paper they looked perfect, so definitely don’t disregard your gut just because your head says it’s right. Middlebury doesn’t often accept transfers.</p>
<p>Thank you Modadun for that very informative post. As a newbie on CC I really appreciate your information.</p>