Majors and Minors
As a liberal arts student, you have a wide range of majors and career options open to you.
How to Choose Your Major
Hear from your classmates how they chose their major.
So, my major is IP & E, and Italian double major. I knew I wanted to take a language at Middlebury and the Italian department sounded like a lot of fun. And then for IP & E, I took an econ class and a poly sci class my first semester, and then talking with professors and everything, they provided me with some guidance on how to choose my major, and what to like, look for in a major. And I ended up doing IP & E together with Italian.
I’m an econ and dance double major. I always want to study economics, since I’m little because I wanted to understand the different realities of people in Venezuela. And in terms of dance, I actually took a class here, and I loved it. And I said, why not? And that’s the reason why I chose it. And yeah, I feel like the CCI has helped me a lot to connect my different, like backgrounds and experiences to, for example, like some outside opportunities and inter history has been like super, super helpful.
Choosing my major was a very long path. I think I did kind of struggle in my first year after changing my major three times, from Biology and from Bio to MBBC, which is molecular biology and biochem, and from MBBC to IP & E, which is international politics and economics. I think it was a very interesting journey, and which I had to figure it out by going and asking random people, like my first year seminar professor, my advisor, from bio major, from MBBC major and from IP & E finally, and also, like just asking around from my friends and one day, I heard that CCI would be really good resource for that. So, then I just walked in in one of the opening sessions, and I said that “I’m lost. I don’t know what to do, and I need help with making a decision.” So, they started asking about, what is my interest and also, what are my skills? So, after saying that I can speak seven languages, and I’m interested in traveling the world, talking with people, helping people, and all I see the future Aisha is someone who is able to help make an impact, a great impact, in the world. So then, based on that, they said, just follow your path and choose whatever you’re passionate about and that you think you could use yourself in it. They didn’t only help you with finding my major, but they also helped me with finding really great opportunities such as internships and volunteering.
So, in high school, I actually took an International Political Economy class. So, I came into Middlebury thinking that I was going to be an IP & E major. So I took an intro to micro class my first semester of my freshman year, and I soon realized that econ was not my vibe at all. And I think I chose IP & E in the beginning because of the word International; it sounded cooler. But then I realized I could have a political science major with an international lens. I looked at the CCI major guides. They have major guides for each major in the CCI office that you can take as many as you want. And I looked at the different careers that follow from being a political science major. And it’s those careers seem to align most with my interest. And then I quickly changed to political science, and because I want to work at an international NGO in the future, speaking multiple language is really important to me, so I decided to also add on another major to that, and that major being Spanish, and now we are here as a double major with Poli Sci and Spanish.
Choosing my major was a little bit of a winding process for me. I actually came in and I was expecting to do neuroscience, so that’s one thing I stuck with. And I was thinking I was thinking I was going to go to medical school, I very quickly realized that that was not the path that I wanted to go down. So I kind of started to look around for something that was maybe including a little bit of science and also a little bit of the humanities. And our neuroscience major really crosses over with our philosophy department. So I started looking around. I found out that I really liked taking philosophy classes. I was much more into the reading and the writing, so I started to think that maybe that was what I wanted to do. And so about halfway through my time here, about sophomore year, I started talking to my academic advisors. I talked to some of the people at the CCI, and was just kind of exploring, like with a neuroscience major, what are the things I can do? What if, with the philosophy major, what are the things I can do? And there was a lot of different options. And I ended up talking to Tim at the CCI, and we started to talk a lot about law and how philosophy majors tend to focus on things like law school, and it was around that point where I started to really focus in on the more humanities, legal side of philosophy and neuroscience, a little bit of a unique combination. Not a lot of people tend to go into neuroscience without medical job experience. So yeah, so that’s kind of how I got there.
So initially I was struggling a lot to figure out what classes I liked. I initially thought about being a political science major, so I took a class, but I really didn’t like it. And after that, I went to the CCI to ask for some guidance, and I spoke with Matt, Matt Kuchar and a career advisor, and he told me, you know, “Your profile matches Econ. Why don’t you go that path in that way?” So I started taking econ classes, and I absolutely loved it, and that’s how I essentially choose my major.
Selecting a major at Middlebury is an exciting point in your academic career, but it may also feel like a big decision.
In addition to your first-year seminar advisors, other faculty, upperclassmen, peers, alumni, family, the team at the CCI is happy to offer advice and resources to help you in this decision.
Guides by Major and Minor
CCI has developed guides that offer valuable information on learning goals specific to majors and minors. These guides also provide suggestions for campus involvement, internships, and real-life career examples of Middlebury alumni. To access these resources, simply download the major and minor guides that interest you.
Field Guide Events
During the academic year, meet Middlebury alumni from a specific major at a CCI Field Guide event. Alumni come to campus to discuss how the liberal arts and their major have had an impact on their life and career decisions. See upcoming and past field guides.
Network
Middlebury alumni build meaningful and dynamic careers in every field you can imagine, from every major. Students can find our alumni and discover the many interesting and creative ways our graduates apply their liberal arts learning to engage the world by searching Midd2Midd, our on-line alumni/student community.
- Check out a list of previous internships and sort by major to get ideas from your peers.
- Check out Midd2Midd for more ways to connect with Middlebury’s broad and engaged alumni network.
Meet with an Advisor
CCI career advisors provide guidance to help you think through decisions about majors and potential career paths. Make an appointment in Handshake.
Additional Guides
What Can I Do With This Major?
Developed by the University of Tennessee Center for Career Development, this is a good working list across a wide variety of majors. The information can give you ideas about career fields that might interest you, but don’t limit your thinking to only these areas—you can pursue a variety of post-graduate goals with any academic major, especially as a liberal arts graduate. The CCI holds a subscription to this site for future reference.