<p>I just graduated from a tiny tiny department. I majored in Medieval and Renaissance Studies - an interdisciplinary major. The “department” has a chair but that position switches every two years. The rest of the faculty are based in other departments (i.e. history, French, religion) and generally teach a combination of Med/Ren and not Med/Ren classes, so you’re never really sure what you’re going to get. There were three of us majoring my year.
And I loved it. I loved the attention, I loved that I knew every professor in the entire school who taught anything related to Medieval history and I loved how much freedom I had. My friends, in bigger departments, had more specific guidelines to follow but because the chair of my department was also my adviser, we could work with my schedule and my interests to create my major.
As for writing a thesis - I understood from the getgo that there was NOBODY on campus who could really help me with my thesis (medieval military history in France and England.) My adviser studies intellectual history and my eventual thesis adviser is an expert on medieval Spain. But it didn’t matter; what I learned from them was how to conduct research, not the details of the late 14th century English longbow which was something I was more than able to learn on my own.
If they offer the major, it’s possible. I was worried at first that there wouldn’t be enough medieval history classes offered, but I was amazed by the wealth I had once I started looking.<br>
And as for professors going on leave - there is one professor at my school who teaches Intro to Early Medieval history and for my first three years of school he was teaching only graduate courses. My last year he came back to undergrad and while I took one of his courses, he didn’t offer the Intro class - he will next semester. I wish I could have taken it, but I took so many other valuable things that it didn’t matter in the end.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that this anthro department and my Med/Ren department were identical; Med/Ren is obviously a more interdisciplinary subject in a lot of ways. But I wouldn’t discount a department just because it’s small.</p>