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Majors, Minors, & Programs
About one-third of your coursework will be for your major. You choose your major your fifth term in residence, typically the winter of your sophomore year. You'll have several advisors to help you make this decision. And if your interests or priorities evolve, you can change your major, even during your senior year.
Combine your interests in many ways
- Basic major: declared with or without a minor in another field
- Modified major: includes substantial work in two departments with emphasis in one
- Dual major: students complete all of the requirements for two Departmental majors
- Special major: a student designs an interdisciplinary or inter-divisional program of study involving two or more departments or programs
- Triple major (about 1% of graduates each year)
You have 57 standard majors to choose from. You have even more programs across the campus. For instance, you can focus on International Relations, Public Policy, International Studies, Dance, Digital Arts, or something of your own creation.
If you don't find your major listed, you have nearly limitless possibilities for special majors, designed to meet your intellectual passion.
Billy Corbett tells how he found his passion in education through his relationship with a faculty mentor.
Get more Perspectives on Dartmouth
Each academic department and program includes among its major requirements a culminating activity, normally undertaken during the senior year. All students take a course—or engage in an independent study project—that permits them to pull together the work of their major and add to this some intellectual or creative activity of their own. The culminating experience could take one of several forms, including a thesis, a paper, an exhibition, a performance, a video game, or something we've not even thought of.
