Bowdoin is a small liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. Brunswick is a town of 20,000, a 30-minute drive from the closest commercial airport in Portland, Maine, and offers a small-town experience — but still accessible. So, you have urban, rural, and coastal. It’s a pretty awesome combo, but it’s not the place for those who want a big city experience. However, Bowdoin offers a lot that big cities, and big schools, don’t. It offers exploration in a supportive, tight-knit community. The place defines the experience, and the experience defines the place. They expect a lot from students, and only accept outstanding applicants, but they also offer support every step of the way. This includes supporting students in pushing them out of their comfort zones! One of the reasons that they can offer this amazing support is because the college is completely undergraduate and has under 2,000 students.
Sometimes people hear that a school is only undergrads, and they think it will have fewer resources than a college with graduate programs. That can be the case, but it isn’t really applicable to Bowdoin. What they offer is so unique and particular to the Bowdoin experience. Students regularly find jobs with the most popular employers globally, including Google and major financial institutions, and go on to outstanding graduate and professional schools, including medical school and law school, at the top universities in the world.
Bowdoin attracts students and faculty who are “cooperative, not competitive.” They prioritize collaboration and don’t set students against each other like many other top tier schools. All students pursue a shared, and writing-intensive foundation, so they start from common ground on day one. Getting into the community isn’t easy, though. Bowdoin is extremely selective, with an acceptance rate of only 7%. And 86% of admitted students were in the top 10% of their graduating class in high school.
In this post, we’ll share the 5 best majors at Bowdoin based on opportunities, resources, and outcomes. Everything at Bowdoin is awesome, but these programs are truly outstanding.
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What Do We Mean by Best Major?
Bowdoin has 43 majors across 24 academic departments. The university has shared what the most popular programs are among enrolled students. “While declared majors in the social and behavioral sciences division have traditionally made up the majority,” they say, “those in the natural science and mathematics division have risen to match them in recent years.” The top ten declared majors are:
Government and Legal Studies
Economics
Computer Science
Mathematics
Biology
Neuroscience
English
Environmental Studies
History
Psychology
All in all, “About 30 percent of declared students choose majors within the humanities and fine arts division.” But what’s the most popular is only one way of determining what is the best, and it’s often not the most accurate. Instead of letting a popularity contest take the sole lead, we’ve determined the 5 best majors based on resources, focus, depth of program, post-graduation resources, and popularity.
So, with no more ado, these are our top five Bowdoin majors!
Government and Legal Studies
While we said this isn’t a popularity contest, Government and Legal Studies is the most popular major at Bowdoin for good reason. It may seem a little strange to study government 570+ miles from Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. But what does it mean to study government in a close and focused environment, away from the hubbub of politics? Well, it’s an opportunity to study history and practice in a focused setting, lining students up for law school or a career in the world of politics.
Then, the Bowdoin Public Service Initiative puts you in the field. The program provides students with opportunities to serve the common good while learning in the field of government through internships and immersive experiences. The Public Service Initiative has a variety of opportunities, including a 10-week internship program or a week-long immersion in Washington, D.C. All students are encouraged to start into the major by completing a writing intensive, and the Government and Legal Studies major also pairs really well with the Philosophy program.
English
The English program at Bowdoin is a famed program with over a century of turning out massively successful writers, editors, and journalists, and storytellers. Students in the program, “develop student skills in analytical reading, writing, and thinking while deepening their capacity for empathic understanding and meaningful self-reflection.” Ultimately, Bowdoin is a home for writers, and for future writing professionals.
Graduates and former faculty members include many famed and Pulitzer award winning journalists, essayists, and authors, such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne in the 19th century, Robert P.T. Coffin and Anthony Doerr in the 20th century, and Jay Caspian Kang and Claudia La Rocco in the 21st century. It should be unsurprising, then, that there is a creative writing program within the major. Students in the major can access traditional writing workshops and intensives, alongside courses like “Writing the History, Culture, and Politics of Food,” and “Medieval Women Writers.”
The English department also helps inform and welcome in the entire Bowdoin community. Each year, the English department hosts a series of writing competitions that are open to all students, and accept writing in fiction, non-fiction, composition, and poetry. And the school paper is award-winning year-after-year.
Biochemistry
Bowdoin is a place where future doctors and scientists get to adventure into their field without sacrificing the depth and dynamism of a liberal arts education. The major in Biochemistry is a great place to begin building these blocks towards a successful future. There are majors in biology and in chemistry, but this brings the two together. Students in the Biochemistry program, though, have access to a variety of fellowships and grants are available to students in the program and there are many summer research opportunities available to students around the country. On campus, students work with faculty in the department, and are often even co-authors on published articles in academic journals.
What really makes Bowdoin’s biochemistry major shine, though, are outcomes. The college has outstanding outcomes for students who go on to apply to top medical schools.
Economics
Studying economics at Bowdoin is a unique opportunity. Students are able to explore real world problems within an environment that challenges expectations with the framework of the principal of working for a common good. The department approaches economics from a nonpartisan perspective with one goal in mind — understanding our economic systems so that students can change the way the world works. Bowdoin expects students to work towards the common good on campus, and beyond, building careers that improve our communities and culture. The economics program brings the theory of economics into conversation with the practice of working towards the common good, and we think that makes the program really stand out. There are plenty of economics classes on offer that you could take anywhere, but also courses that are truly Bowdoin like “The Economics of Art and Culture,” “Environmental and Natural Resource Economics.” Students are also encouraged to conduct independent research projects.
Philosophy
Ok, so this is our wildcard, but hear us out. The philosophy program at Bowdoin is truly top-notch. Not a lot of high school seniors say, “I think a major in philosophy makes sense,” but we love the Bowdoin program, and philosophy is a building block of any liberal arts education — and modern society. Philosophy is not just interesting as an academic pursuit, but also a genuinely useful major for students who know they want to go to law school.
Pairing philosophy with creative writing can guide a student towards a career in journalism, or pairing philosophy with biochemistry or biology can lead a student towards a medical career. There are so many paths you can take, and Bowdoin is the perfect place to explore them. Students can explore all these avenues to understanding through courses like “The Souls of Animals,” “Polarization, Disagreement, and Intellectual Humility,” and “AI and the Future of Humanity.”
If more than one of these majors sounds exciting to you, you should know that “Although not required, about 60 percent of declared students choose a minor in addition to their major.” Yes, 60%. So, at Bowdoin, you can explore everything that fascinates you, finding commonalities and opportunities for collaboration every step of your undergraduate education.
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