Data graphed by Shihab Moral

Majors have soared and declined in enrollment over the last 25 years at Bowdoin, changing how students engage with the liberal arts education. The Bowdoin Orient compiled data from 1999-2024 to understand trends in major enrollment and gather perspectives of students, faculty and alumni.

The College breaks down its majors, minors and programs into four divisions: Humanities and Fine Arts, Natural Science and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Interdepartmental and Interdisciplinary. For 2024, the most recent year for which this data is available, Natural Science and Mathematics made up 36 percent of graduates’ majors, Social and Behavioral Sciences 34 percent, Humanities and Fine Arts 18 percent, and Interdepartmental and Interdisciplinary 12 percent. The College has seen growth in “STEM” (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) majors, often coinciding with decreasing enrollment in the humanities.

Data graphed by Shihab Moral

Professor of Natural Sciences and Director of the Biochemistry Program Barry Logan believes that increased interest in scientific majors results from the perceived financial security of these fields.

“I think a lot of that speculation resides in growing wealth inequality nationally … and the perception they have, which isn’t actually born out in the data, that STEM fields offer some greater assurance of a secure income post college,” Logan said.

As with other growing departments, Logan said the influx of students studying biology and biochemistry can present challenges.

“Conduct[ing] research, independent studies, paid summer research fellowships, pursuit of honors, which we see as really valuable elements to an undergraduate degree in biochemistry or biology … [it gets] hard to say yes to everybody because of the numbers and our ability then to offer students the kind of experience that they deserve,” Logan said.

While biology has consistently been one of the most highly enrolled majors, other STEM majors have experienced significant growth. This includes neuroscience, an interdisciplinary program drawing from the biology and psychology departments. Professor of Biology and Neuroscience and Chair of the Biology Department Hadley Horch explained how increased enrollment in neuroscience may reflect student excitement about both neuroscience and STEM fields more broadly.

“I’m biased in that I think neuroscience is super cool. So I think at least some of it probably comes from just being a phenomenally interesting science,” Horch said. “To a certain extent beyond just what is inherently cool about neuroscience, it may just be that we are benefitting from a move from the humanities into STEM.”

To Horch, students should be able to explore all aspects of a liberal arts education—including both STEM and the humanities. She explained that neuroscience  classes that are accessible to students lacking a background in the discipline are especially valuable. Yet, as enrollment pressures have increased, the program has experienced difficulty offering enough space in classes for interested students.

Horch hopes the two new faculty lines the neuroscience program is receiving, one from the Hastings Initiative for AI and Humanity and one from the “From Here” campaign, will increase availability of a broader range of neuroscience courses.

“Neuroscience is an incredibly broad discipline. There are neuro-economics people, there are neuro-psych people, there are neuro people who look at music, there are neuro people who really kind of interact with almost any other discipline you imagine,” she said.

Another interdisciplinary major experiencing growth is the education coordinate major—a relatively new addition at the College. In 2016, the department introduced the education coordinate major, while previously, students could only minor in education. Since then, enrollment has increased, peaking with 29 students graduating with an education degree in 2020.

Associate Professor of Education and Chair of the Education Department Alison Miller attributes this increase partly to the opportunity for graduates to directly make an impact through a career in education.

“It goes up and down every year, but we’ve seen a pretty steady increase in the program … because students’ career aspirations seem to be shifting in ways where people are looking to do things that actually matter,” Miller said. “And so we’re seeing more and more students really seeing education as a way to put practical application to a love of their particular content area or discipline or framework for thinking about the world.”

As interest in education continues to grow, the department is also hiring two new professors. Education course offerings at Bowdoin include both a teaching track and an education studies track. The department currently aims to increase the breadth of education studies courses, focusing on education policy, law and adolescent literacies.

“We’re looking for folks who can really expand our course offerings for students because our students are hungry for it,” Miller said. “For students, it’s just going to open up whole new ways of looking at and thinking about education and education studies in particular.”

Perhaps no department has experienced growth quite like the Department of Computer Science (CS), which skyrocketed from three majors graduating in 1999 to 40 in 2024. This trend began to accelerate during the early 2010s, and the department faced enrollment pressures similar to other growing departments.

Melissa Haskell ’13, a physics major and CS minor, noted the difficulty of entering computer science courses during her time at Bowdoin, with her graduation year including a record number of computer science majors for the time.

“It was so hard to get into classes,” Haskell said. “There was a class or two that I couldn’t get into because I wasn’t a major. The class was so popular they were only allowing majors.”

Haskell, who today is a senior scientist at a medical technology company, said that she felt that her CS education proved valuable throughout her career.

“[The] CS minor is also super helpful, especially if you go into scientific research like I did, because knowing how to write code [is] kind of like knowing how to write an essay and being able to communicate or produce a product in a different format,” she said.

Today, CS has continued to soar in popularity at colleges nationwide. Yet, CS graduates are entering a job market where highly coveted positions in software engineering and related fields are increasingly competitive.

Prathit Kurup ’26, a computer science major and mathematics minor, was originally looking at software engineering roles before transitioning to data science analytics and consulting. He noted that, with software engineering in particular, the pressures of artificial intelligence and the increasing number of CS graduates contribute to a competitive job market.

“A few years back, I think people had this impression that getting a computer science degree guaranteed a high paying job at a competitive big tech company or startup, and that’s just not the case for new graduates anymore,” Kurup said. “I’m not going into big tech, but I do feel for people who have a computer science degree but just can’t get the job that they want.”

Another major that has seen consistent growth in enrollment—and increasing competitiveness of the workforce—is economics. Despite this, economics major Nate Joseph ’13 said that his experience was not hampered by high demand, expressing that his professors remained committed to providing individual support to students.

“I don’t particularly remember difficulty in enrolling in classes for the major or getting attention, and still in the more advanced classes, the class sizes were small,” Joseph said.

While many majors have seen rising enrollments, some, particularly humanities majors such as history, have seen interest remain steady or even decrease. Still, students and professors in these fields remain passionate about their value to a liberal arts education.

History major Fiona Jenkins ’27 explained that, while she was not originally planning on studying history, she was drawn into the field by the opportunity to engage with questions around the past and make sense of the world today.

“How do we envision a world that we want to live in? And how do we go about making that happen?” Jenkins said. “I feel like studying history helps me start to find the answers to those questions.”

Other majors have remained relatively small throughout their entire history. Greg Koziol ’17 graduated as a Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies (GSWS) major and works in the nonprofit sector. He said he felt the major was sparsely supported during his time at Bowdoin.

“At the time, the support for it felt pretty thin. There were only a couple classes that were exclusively … GSWS. Most classes were crosslisted, and a lot of the faculty in the department were visiting,” Koziol said.

Still, Koziol, who came to Bowdoin intending to study computer science but ended up majoring in GSWS, found the curriculum valuable for understanding himself and the world.

“I felt like computer science was a really cool skill, and I really enjoyed doing it, but it didn’t feel meaningful to me. Whereas I think in a lot of my humanities classes…, I was doing this work of trying to understand the world in this big way,” Koziol said. “[GSWS] is more about my own personal development as opposed to giving me specific skills that have helped me.”

Cedar Greve ’26, a GSWS coordinate major with environmental studies, expressed appreciation for the engaging nature of GSWS courses.

“What they teach you or challenge you to think is exactly how they engage with you,” Greve said. “And I think that’s amazing.”

As Bowdoin graduates enter the workforce, many apply the skills from their majors to a wide variety of careers. Executive Director of Career Exploration and Development (CXD) Kristin Brennan emphasized that the paths of Bowdoin graduates are not linear.

“In a liberal arts college, it’s still true that you can enter a broad array of careers from any major,” Brennan wrote in an email to the Orient. “There’s no such thing as an English major career, a biology major career [or] an economics major career.”

Brennan added that, while the careers of Bowdoin graduates tend to shift with the broader workforce, a liberal arts education helps students navigate a changing career landscape in the 21st century.

“Maybe what is new is how rapidly professions are changing, and Bowdoin students with their liberal arts education and ability to learn and pivot are particularly well equipped for that,” Brennan wrote.

Haskell echoed this sentiment.

“If you want to do a Ph.D., which is what I did…, your undergrad major doesn’t define you—you can do so many things in graduate school with different types of undergraduate majors,” Haskell said.

Similarly, Horch explained that while students may believe they need a particular major for their path, this is usually not the case; in fact, data indicates humanities majors may have greater success in medical school admissions.

Logan also emphasized that he believes STEM and humanities majors are not in competition at Bowdoin.

“Sometimes a divide is set up between the humanities or the liberal disciplines and STEM fields, and … I don’t feel that divide at all. I feel very much at home … offering courses that fit neatly into a liberal arts curriculum,” Logan said. “We have a lot to tell and offer each other’s work.”