A Bates Education

A Bates education fosters intellectual inquiry and reflection, personal growth, and a commitment to the world beyond oneself. Bates offers students a rigorous academic experience in a collaborative and supportive environment.

At Bates, students and faculty form a community of scholars who share a thirst for learning, drawing on the methods of the sciences, the patterns of logic and language, the study of societies and expression in the arts.

General Education

The Bates faculty believes that an educated person cultivates areas of knowledge and understanding, modes of appreciation, and ways of learning that will be useful throughout life. The goal of General Education is to ensure that every Bates graduate has explored a variety of subjects from many perspectives, communicates effectively, and can analyze and solve problems in many contexts.

First-year seminars

Every first-year student is encouraged to launch his or her Bates career in a first-year seminar, an interdisciplinary course focused on developing critical thinking and effective writing. The seminar instructor serves as the student’s academic advisor until he or she declares a major.

Majors and minors

The Bates curriculum is structured around more than thirty majors and related minors, areas of specialization through which a student gains expertise in a particular academic discipline.

Senior thesis

At Bates we are concerned with the development of each student as a scholar. Every Bates student completes a senior project — usually a senior thesis — an extensive, independent research project or artistic work that is the culmination of study in the major.