The Natural and Applied Sciences (NAS) Program focuses on the intersection of human and environmental health and experience. NAS Graduates are practiced in applying scientific techniques, data collection, and review; and demonstrate proficiency in clear, succinct, modern modes of communication.

Religious Studies is a humanistic and social-scientific discipline that provides windows onto a wide range of cultural phenomena and contemporary social questions.

Anthropologists investigate cultural variation, with particular attention to race, gender, ethnicity, political and social change, and human evolution. Anthropology is a comprehensive discipline offering students a broad, comparative, and essentially interdisciplinary approach to the study of human life in all its diversity.

In a globalized society, it is essential to find alternatives to U.S.-centric world views and create opportunities to center and learn from equally important voices and perspectives from around the world. We have much to learn from Asia’s complex experiences with local, regional, and global flows of privilege, power, colonialism, and ethnic conflict.

chemistry deals with phenomena of matter and energy that affect nearly every aspect of our lives and environment. A chemistry education explores the theories, laws, applications, and potential of this science. Biochemistry encompasses the study of the form and function of the proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids found in living organisms. Traditionally, biochemistry has been an interdisciplinary field, drawing on techniques and expertise from physics, medicine, biology, and chemistry.

An understanding of economics can help foster intelligent citizenship. Policy makers in business, government, and the nonprofit sector frequently evaluate complex economic issues. The goal of the economics curriculum is to educate students, both majors and nonmajors, about the ideas of economics and how they apply to today's world.

Environmental studies encompasses a broad range of issues that arise from the interaction of humans with the natural world and built environments. To understand these issues, students must think across and beyond existing disciplinary boundaries. The environmental studies major provides a framework for students to examine how humans experience, investigate, and interact with the world around them.

The Program in European Studies reinforces the college's mission to engage students in intellectual discovery and informed global citizenship. European studies is a multifaceted interdisciplinary program that broadens students' understanding of the region and encourages them to question assumptions about Europe's role in the world. Courses offered in European studies (EUS or EU) are taught in English.

General Education concentrations challenge students to develop significant expertise outside their major. Each concentration consists of four courses chosen from a faculty-designed menu that is structured on the basis of a clearly articulated organizing principle. Some concentrations focus on a particular issue or topic or area of inquiry identified by several professors working across different disciplines; others are formed within a single discipline. Some concentrations may include relevant co-curricular experiences such as significant community service, orchestra, theatrical performance, or volunteer work. The required concentrations may also be fulfilled by completing a minor or a second major. General Education concentrations appear on the transcript.

History has been defined as the collective memory of things said and done, arranged in a meaningful pattern. Such knowledge of the past supplies context, perspective, and clarity in a diverse and changing world. The members of the history department offer widely differing views of the history of a broad variety of peoples, yet they agree that the study of the past provides meaning in the present and informed choices for the future.

The Department of Music gives students the opportunity to study music from cultural, historical, theoretical, psychological, creative, and interpretive perspectives, including study of Western and non-Western classical, popular, and experimental musical traditions. Most of the courses offered are suitable for general liberal arts students. Music majors and minors have the opportunity to pursue individual interests in depth. In recent years, students have completed interdisciplinary and double-major programs including substantial work in music.

Rhetoric is a vital aspect of modern democracy. Courses offered by the Department of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies teach students to understand how citizens use the symbolic in processes of negotiation within democratic states. Historically, this understanding has come through study of oratory, writing, and debate. But as the public sphere has expanded, so have the skills needed for successful agency: skills also now address visual media such as film, television, and virtual worlds.

Theater at Bates invites students to develop existing abilities and enthusiasms and to discover new ones. Studying theater means making connections. There are many parts to assemble and explore: acting, directing, design, stage management, dramaturgy, playwriting, technical skill, dramatic literature, theater history and performance studies. Because theater is an art that spans millennia and is practiced all over the world, connections must be made with and between multiple cultures and traditions. To make things by making connections is to learn about process, self-discipline, collaboration, and critical thinking. To that end, the curriculum strikes a balance among artistic training, technical skills, and the study of theater literature, history and theory. Majors are prepared for graduate work in the humanities, for further professional training, or for initial steps toward a career in the field.

The Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies analyzes local and global entanglements of knowledge, power, pleasure, and resistance. Drawing on histories of antiracist, decolonial, feminist, queer, and trans work, courses examine shifting dynamics of privilege, exclusion, and marginalization. The program also cultivates action, practice, and reciprocal engagement with the many communities of which we are part. To study gender and sexuality in these ways is to refute simple assertions about identity in favor of richly detailed accounts of the specific conditions through which particular social positions are maintained and transgressed. Students may choose to either major or minor in gender and sexuality studies.

Chemistry deals with phenomena that affect nearly every aspect of our lives and environment. A liberal arts education in this scientific and technological age should include some exposure to the theories, laws, applications, and potential of this science.