Kalamazoo College offers twenty-seven majors through which students explore and develop expertise in an academic discipline. Majors programs are designed to move from the broad to the specific through a sequence of core and elective courses. Upper-level majors courses usually delve deeply into a specific topic, and students can shape a particular emphasis within a major through their choice of upper-level courses. No matter what the discipline, all majors programs build skills in written and oral expression, information literacy, critical thinking and analysis, creative problem-solving, and independent scholarship.

Minors and concentrations enable students to supplement a major with directed study of another realm of interest and, in the process, lend more coherence to course selections satisfying Areas of Study and other general education requirements. Most disciplines offering a major also offer a minor. A minor typically includes a subset of what is required for a major, whereas a concentration is a set of courses with a common focus drawn from several disciplines. Ten concentrations are offered: African Studies, American Studies, Biochemistry-Molecular Biology, Biological Physics, Classical Studies, Environmental Studies, Health Studies, Media Studies, Public Policy and Urban Affairs, and Women’s Studies.