What courses and majors are offered?
Are there graduate programs on campus? Will I have contact with professors?
Are there study abroad programs? How many students choose that option?
What about opportunities for significant research?
Tell me about the advising system.
 What courses and majors are offered?
Davidson offers:
Included in Davidson's available majors is the ability to design your own interdisciplinary major through the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. Becoming a "Center major" allows a student to indulge his or her passion for studying a topic, issue, scientific problem, region, historical era, or genre from various disciplinary perspectives.
Davidson College Course Catalog
Are there graduate programs on campus? Will I have contact with professors?
No. Davidson does not offer graduate programs.
This allows Davidson professors to focus solely on the undergraduate. Students are taught by terminal degree-holding faculty members in classes normally capped at 35 students. Davidson boasts a student-to-faculty ratio of 9.9:1.
Davidson professors are expected to be available to their students often -- usually via established office hours. But, it's quite common for professors to provide their phone numbers, to welcome students into their homes to share meals and conversation, and to invest in the lives of their students outside of the classroom as well.
The personal connection between professors and students is a hallmark of the Davidson experience.
Are there study abroad programs? How many students choose that option?
Davidson sponsors numerous academic programs abroad:
For Semester, Year and Summer
Affiliated Programs
Students also have the option of studying through a foreign institution or a program sponsored by another American college or university.
More than 80% of Davidson students will travel abroad during their college years.
More information on Study Abroad
Davidson’s Dean Rusk International Studies Program not only serves as an anchor point for students to learn more about Davidson and non-Davidson abroad programs, it funds student travel and research abroad. Over $100,000 is set aside annually for student travel grants.
What about opportunities for significant research?
Davidson is consistently recognized for excellence in undergraduate research. Throughout the academic year and the summertime, students -- in the sciences and the humanities -- carry out directed research projects.
While being mentored by Davidson professors, these undergraduates have a special opportunity to contribute substantively and originally to the academic world. Many will present their work at conferences and association meetings. Many will publish in academic journals.
Programs like the Davidson Research Initiative (DRI) support student research. Funded by a $750,000 grant from the Duke Endowment, the DRI enables students to pursue research opportunities in biology, chemistry, ecology, neuroscience, and public policy (to name a few) with Davidson professors for up to ten weeks over the summer.
The Davidson Research Initiative
Tell me about the advising system.
Students find a network of academic support at Davidson, with the first-year academic advisor serving as the primary link between the student and the rest of the academic community. First-year students are assigned an academic advisor at random; that advisor helps with course selection and acclimation to Davidson academic life.
Students are required to declare a major by the end of the sophomore year. As part of that declaration process, a student solicits his or her own academic advisor.
Davidson College Course Catalog
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