Four Short YearsThe exploration and personal growth inherent in study in the liberal arts provides a strong foundation for personal and career success. Unfortunately, four years at Bates passes very quickly. Four calendar years translates to 1,460 days, but in reality most students spend only 780 days on campus if breaks, summer recess and a study abroad year are subtracted. The exploration and integration of new values, ideas, interests and skills through academics, extracurricular activities, internships and community service takes place in a context of limited time. Little time exists for reflection in which students can integrate these new parts of their selves into day to day living. Defining Goals & Flexible Options The problem of having limited time for engaging both established and new interests and values suggests the need for a method of determining your expected priorities. With a flexible plan, or map, you can engage those interests, ideas and values that are most important to you. The purpose of the Four Year Map is to design a plan of action, incorporating academics, campus activities, work experiences, community service, term employment and long term goals toward the objective of ensuring that your goals are recognized and eventually experienced. The Map is designed as forward looking and flexible, so it can and should be revised periodically. Your changes and additions will then reflect your interests and plans for the future. In this way, you will design a path which maximizes the value of your Bates experience. Academic Map This section of the Four Year Map will help you track the meeting of the requirements that the College and individual departments have set. The context of the Academic Map is a creative tension between planning to reach individual academic objectives and requirements, and flexibility to change in response to your changing needs. More information on the individual categories below can be found in the current edition of the Bates College Catalog. General Education The liberal arts tradition has long embodied the value of a base of understanding in the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. An awareness of the importance of the knowledge of both theories of our world and limitations of the theories develops a broader understanding of the human condition. General education requirements serve to underscore respect for the process of developing ideas, as well as respect for the ideas of others. They introduce students to an understanding of the creativity required in all fields for advances in knowledge. Each student is required to complete three courses from natural sciences. Three from the social sciences must be completed, including two from a departmentally designed set. Five courses from the humanities, including an approved cluster of three around a coherent theme are required, as is at least one approved course in the use of quantitative techniques. All included, twelve courses must be satisfactorily completed in pursuit of the general education requirements. Using the Map, you can tentatively decide which courses will be taken during particular semesters in order to be certain of covering this requirement. The Major In addition to the foundation of liberal arts study provided
by the general education requirements, it is necessary to choose
a specific field in which to focus on a particular area of interest.
According to the Catalog,
one quarter to one third of Bates academic requirements are comprised
of filling the requirements of your major. Departmental majors
are offered by: anthropology, art, biology, chemistry, East Asian
languages and cultures, economics, English, French, geology,
German, history, mathematics, music, philosophy, physics, political
science, psychology, religion, rhetoric, Russian, sociology,
Spanish and theater. Interdisciplinary program majors include
African American Studies, American cultural studies, biological
chemistry, classical and medieval studies, environmental studies
and women's studies. Students, with careful planning, may also
propose their own individually designed majors. Consult the Catalog
for the specific requirements of each major. Short Term Short Term units offer five week study for a variety of educational programs not able to be offered during regular semesters. Courses may comprise traditional academic study, field experiences or internships. Students must successfully complete two Short Term units but not more than three during their academic work at Bates. Use the Map to plan when to fit these units into your schedule. Electives Electives can be chosen outside of the general education, major and short term units to explore fields of interest which may have caught your attention while fulfilling requirements, or study a particular interest unrelated to required course work. Using the Four Year Map can help to ensure that you have the opportunity to explore fields which you would like to explore and can help to balance your semester loads with a variety of types of courses. Research/Thesis Your capstone academic experience at Bates through a directed research project in your senior year must be as carefully planned as any other event during your four years at the college. If your thesis is a term or year, some departments will offer summer research options. In addition, the Dean of the Faculty Office annually offers competitive research funds for summer, term time, travel, and thesis research. As you begin to define your academic needs and goals, seriously consider reviewing the offerings for support available through the college. The descriptions and deadlines for these programs should be consulted as early as possible. THE EXTRACURRICULAR MAP A very significant portion of a Bates education comes from experiences outside of the traditional classroom. Extracurricular experiences take the ideas and values learned in the classroom and bring depth of understanding through exposure to the problems of the campus and the world beyond Bates. Importantly, students find that their activities on and off campus feed back into their academic work, suggesting new areas for questioning and greatly enhancing personal and intellectual development. Extracurricular pursuits can also provide you with direction and focus in your academics. Internship/Summer Job Projections Internships provide a twofold benefit. First, like an academic investigation, internships and related summer jobs provide a "reality test" of your interests. Internships, both paid and unpaid help to confirm a direction in which you are going, or to suggest to you that you may want to try either a modified or wholly new direction. Either way, internships and summer jobs represent an invaluable source of learning. Second, internships and summer jobs begin to build a bridge to your future and aid in the transition to the world beyond Bates. Moreover, you will have the opportunity to meet people with similar interests who have successfully moved from academics to work. Exploring a variety of internship experiences will bring to the light of reality the talents you most enjoy using in the venues you would enjoy using them, helping to demystify the career decision making process. Using the Map in planning and pursuing internships will help to make sure you get the enhanced sense of direction and benefits of new skills offered through this type of experience. Office of Career Services The Office of Career Services offers counseling in order to identify and clarify potential interests and objectives. The OCS also manages formal internship programs and resources to help students explore and actualize their interests. A sampling of current programs includes the Ladd Internship Program for sophomores and juniors, paid internships partially funded by the Ladd foundation in a variety of fields such as medicine, business, and non profits; the Career Discovery Internship Program, a one week experience during February break providing students with the opportunity to shadow a Bates alum working in the student's field of interest with over 70 different opportunities to pursue; Venture and Venture 2, over 300 different internships in many different fields coordinated in conjunction with the Venture Consortium of seven liberal arts schools; and the Urban Education Program, an opportunity to teach and study education in an urban setting. Utilizing the Four Year Map will aid with making certain to take advantage of the entire spectrum of internship experiences. Service Learning and Community Service Many Bates students find serving others in the community rewarding
both personally and as part of their academic development. Students
undertaking community service outside of the curriculum often
bring a valuable level of understanding of social problems back
in to the classroom. As with internships, community service often
tends to clarify direction or point students into a new direction
of intellectual and vocational pursuits. The Bates Career Advisor Network offered through the Office of Career Services allows the possibility of connecting early on in each student's academic career with alumni working in the field of interest. Alumni listed in the network have volunteered to act as career advisors and mentors to Batesies to help decide on career direction and related issues. Conversations with alumni who work in your fields of interest can be an enhancement to every student's sense of purpose and direction in their studies. Starting early with these conversations would help to build a team of advisors who will be able to help with planning strategies for achieving career goals both through internships and through the transition beyond campus. Planning to start early, and including these conversations in each semester of the map, will add a great deal of value to your Bates education. Beginning the conversations early will minimize stress at all times when you need to disengage from campus activities and course work and engage the work world. Campus Activities Campus activities, including athletics as well as student run interest clubs provide a strong opportunity for the development of interests as well as skills. Some activities, for example athletics or leadership roles in clubs, demand very large time commitments, while others, for example attending a meeting as a member of a club, ask less of a student's time. In using the Four Year Map, consider that you may want to try membership in different clubs to explore your interests. Make time for your core commitments. Term Time Employment In addition to the obvious benefit of providing extra money during semesters, term time employment can help provide skills needed to move beyond Bates and into the world beyond campus. Similar to other activities, time constraints demand that term time employment be looked at in the context of fitting employment during the semester in with curricular and extracurricular pursuits. Looking forward with the Map, you can plan term time employment to evaluate the realities of managing the remaining time in your week. Personal Time Of course, along with all of the activities listed above, there must be time available for socializing and for quiet time for yourself. In planning with the Map, personal time cannot be forgotten, otherwise the Map will be unrealistic. Plan a realistic course of action and downtime. Long Range Plans Long range planning issues can come up seemingly unnoticed, but soon considerations of graduate school and related issues will move into focus. If graduate school is an option, the Four Year Map can be used to plan researching and visiting schools, taking requisite standardized exams and moving through the application process. Forethought, particularly if you are considering Junior Year or Semester Abroad, will ensure that some of these issues are addressed as early as your second year at school. Senior year would then have less stress associated with the transition beyond Bates. |