Majors and Minors
All Swarthmore academic departments offer course and honors majors, which are described in detail on their websites and in the catalog.
Most, but not all, departments and programs also offer honors minors and/or course minors. See the departmental websites and catalog for more information about minors.
Major(s)
& Minor(s) and the limits to majoring and minoring
1. A Major is Required. Students are required to have
one major. (All majors, minors & concentrations must be approved by the departments or programs.) This is the only requirement. A second major, minors, and Honors
are optional.
2. Optional Second Major. Students may have up to two
majors; a student with two majors may not have a minor (as approved).
Exception: A student who chooses an honors major plus minor may have a second
major outside of honors if that second major is the same as the
honors minor or is a course special major which integrates the honors minor
into the course special major.
3. Optional Minors. Students may have one or two minors (as approved),
if they have only one major.
a. A minor may be completed in course or as part of an Honors
program.
b. Most departments and programs, though not all, will offer
course minors. Those departments or programs which will not offer course minors
under the new program are: Comparative Literature, Economics, Political Science,
Sociology & Anthropology, and Studio Art. (These departments or programs
will continue to offer Honors minors.)
c. A student who chooses an Honors major plus minor may have
an additional course minor outside the Honors Program (so long as the student does not have a course second major).
4. Special Majors are available -- see the information about them.
5. The Overlap Constraint: Minors will include at least
five credits, four of which may not overlap with the student's major or other
minor. The overlap rule applies to any two entities taken at one time but not
collectively to three entities taken together (it is a pair-wise not a global
overlap rule). This means that a student who has a major in Medieval Studies,
for example, and minors in English and Women's Studies, must meet the overlap
rule in each possible pairing but not in the three taken together. So a course
might overlap between Medieval Studies and English and a different course might
overlap between Medieval Studies and Women's Studies. There is an optional Overlap
Checksheet to help in planning non-overlap.
Exceptions to the overlap rule:
1) The overlap constraint is not applicable to courses that departmental
majors or minors MUST take in other departments; e.g. Mathematics courses required
for an Engineering major are not automatically excluded from a minor defined
by the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.
2) For an Honors major who is also a double major, the overlap
constraint does not apply to the relationship between the Honors minor and the
second major since these will always have overlapping fields. Thus
an English Honors major who is a History Honors minor and also a History course
major as part of a double major is not violating the constraint.
Overlap between two majors: If a student has two majors and one is an interdisciplinary special major, no more than 2 credits may be double counted with the student’s other major. However, the double-counting limit is not applicable to courses that students are required by their departmental major to take in other departments (overlap exception 1, above).
Sample programs
Major: Biology
Minor: Philosophy
Majors: History, Chemistry
Major: Art History
Minors: French, Environmental Studies
Honors Major: Political Science
Honors Minor: Black Studies
Honors Major: Linguistics
Honors Minor: Sociology and Anthropology
Course Minor: Music
Honors Major: English
Honors Minor: History
Course Major: History
Historical note: In Fall 2001, Swarthmore started offering course minors (phasing out "interdisciplinary concentrations"). The first graduating class to be able to graduate with course minors was the class of 2003, which could choose either the old or new curriculum. The class of 2004 and beyond use the rules of the new curriculum including course minors.
