Hdo You Have to Pick a Subject to Get a Liberal Arts Degree?

If you've started researching colleges, you've probably seen the term "liberal arts school" thrown around quite a bit without actually agreement what it means. What is a liberal arts higher, actually?  And how is it dissimilar from other sorts of colleges and universities?

It'southward difficult to get a direct respond when it comes to defining a liberal arts higher. In this mail service, I'll dive a picayune deeper into defining the liberal arts earlier explaining what it ways to get a liberal arts educational activity. Then, I'll talk about how these colleges differ from not-liberal arts schools and how that may affect your educational feel.

What Are the Liberal Arts?

To get a good understanding of the origins of the liberal arts, we take to go all the way back to classical antiquity - think aboriginal Greece in its prime number. Participation in civic life was pretty important to many classical philosophers, who thought that a certain fundamental knowledge should be expected of active gratis citizens. In aboriginal times, liberal arts included grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, and even music and astronomy. The "liberal" in liberal arts has goose egg to do with political liberalism, and everything to do with the original Latin roots of the words: artes liberales translates to subjects of the free person.

Modern understanding of the liberal arts has, unsurprisingly, changed from that of ancient philosophers'. When we talk about the liberal arts today, we're referring to a broad range of subjects: literature, languages, history, philosophy, math, and sciences. What liberal arts don't include are any sort of vocational, technical, or professional studies.

What Is a Liberal Arts Teaching?

Now that you've gotten a mini-history lesson, we can go into what information technology means to get a liberal arts teaching in modern times.

Different cultures sometimes have their own unique twists on what it means to offer a liberal arts teaching. In general, though, a liberal arts education is one that focuses on producing well-rounded individuals. American schools that provide a liberal arts education might aim to produce "global citizens": individuals who are well-equipped to participate in an informed, ethical fashion in the globe effectually them.

I could say that the ultimate goal of a liberal arts instruction is to teach students how to retrieve critically, and to finer translate and analyze new data they encounter every bit they navigate their environments. These programs tend to be flexible in the sense that at that place'due south not but one career path you could feasibly pursue mail service-graduation.

If you attend a liberal arts program, you might say you lot accept a liberal arts degree. Examples of liberal arts degrees include languages and literature, biology and life sciences, philosophy, cultural studies, and psychology.

What Doesn't Count equally a Liberal Arts Education

A liberal arts degree is not something yous would receive in a vocational, technical, or professional person plan. These sort of programs be to educate students with the purpose of preparing them for a specific career - that is, at that place'due south a clear professional end goal. As such, these educations are generally more than career-oriented.

Examples of non-liberal arts educations include police school, medical school, applied science programs, and architecture programs.

Architecture may be considered a form of art - it just doesn't fall under the heading of liberal arts.

What Is a Liberal Arts Higher?

Like I alluded to in the introduction, there'due south no set or standardized definition of a liberal arts college. In general, though, they are educational institutions that emphasize undergraduate education (equally opposed to producing research) and award at least half of their degrees in the liberal arts fields of study (like I described higher up). Students generally pick one course of written report to focus on, while likewise taking courses in other diverse subjects. Check out our post on top liberal arts colleges for examples.

Liberal arts colleges tend to encourage their students to study a broad range of subjects instead of focusing solely on one field of written report. The manner schools actually practice this varies, even so - there are a few unlike paths that liberal arts colleges can take here:

• Core Curriculums - Cadre curriculums are gear up plans of study that include mandatory courses in dissimilar subjects that all students must have in order to graduate. An example would be the core curriculum at Purdue'southward College of Liberal Arts within Purdue Academy.

• Distribution Requirements - Distribution requirements are plans of report that require students to take courses across a range of different subjects, but they don't dictate exactly which courses a student must have in order to graduate. At Williams Higher, for example, students have to accept courses in three different "divisions" (in improver to coming together requirements for their major of selection): Languages and the Arts, Social Studies, and Science and Mathematics.

• Open Curriculums - Open curriculums hateful that students don't have to meet any grade requirements - either in the form of specific, mandatory courses or distribution requirements - in order to graduate. They are free to cull whatsoever courses bachelor to them every bit long every bit they meet the requirements for their choice of major. An instance of an open up curriculum is the one offered at Amherst College.

How Are Liberal Arts Colleges Different From Other Schools?

Liberal arts colleges are oft compared to research universities, although some schools exist as hybrids - both pushing to be research powerhouses while as well striving to offering a liberal arts instruction. The traditional liberal arts higher focuses primarily on undergraduate educational activity, however, which means that professors tend to exist hired and retained for their educational activity and not necessarily for their research experience. This tends to bear on student/professor relationships and overall pupil learning experiences. For instance:

• Undergraduates may have more than admission to professors considering there'south less of an emphasis on research and graduate programs.

• The colleges themselves tend to be smaller than enquiry universities, with smaller class sizes and student: faculty ratios.

• There may be fewer research opportunities available.

Access to research projects is one of the major differentiators between liberal arts colleges and other types of schools.

To make this a bit easier to understand, hither'south a chart with the typical characteristics of a traditional liberal arts college vs. a traditional research academy:

Liberal Arts Colleges vs. Research Universities

	Liberal Arts Colleges	Inquiry Universities
Degree Program Offerings	More limited, just sometimes unique, degree programs	Wide selection of caste programs
Pre-Professional Options	Few (if any) pre-professional offerings	More pre-professional degree offerings
Inquiry vs. Teaching	Professors are generally focused on teaching over research	Professors are by and large focused on inquiry and graduate students over teaching undergraduates
Class Size	Smaller average class size	Larger average class size
Research Opportunities	Fewer research opportunities and less exposure to inquiry	More research opportunities and exposure to research
Public vs. Private	Usually individual	May be public or private
Lectures vs. Seminars	Many small seminar offerings	More lectures, fewer small seminars
Mentorship & Career Opportunities	Easier to form relationships with profs and peers for career & professional connections	More than hard to grade relationships with profs, but more career fairs and recruiting events

The effect with the in a higher place nautical chart is that many of the elevation private inquiry universities also pride themselves on providing liberal arts educations for undergraduates - at that place isn't a clear delineation, and then, betwixt a liberal arts college and a research university in these circumstances.

Top enquiry universities may, for instance:

• Have core curriculums, distribution requirements, or even open curriculums that are very similar to the ones you lot'd see at a traditional liberal arts college (Chocolate-brown has a famously open curriculum, for case).

• Offer few (if any) pre-professional degree programs. You won't find many business or finance degree programs, for example, at many of these liberal arts-minded research universities.

• Strive to offer smaller seminar-mode courses to encourage educatee participation and class discussion. See Harvard's freshman seminar program as an example.

We can run into, then, that in that location are really iii options here when discussing this spectrum of school types: nosotros have liberal arts colleges and research universities, but at that place are also hybrid options that tend to exist pretty prestigious and highly-ranked. It'south important to continue these in mind when researching colleges, merely recollect that these hybrid options are often top-tier and shouldn't be considered condom bets if you're submitting applications.

What Sort of School Is the Correct Fit for You?

If you lot're leaning towards the liberal arts in full general (or are even all the same making upwardly your mind, but don't know what type of college would be the best fit), these next considerations should help you figure it out.

Career Goals

Do you know exactly what you want to do after you lot graduate? Many students don't know exactly what they want to do professionally when they're just applying to college. If you're not sure, it'southward non just ok - information technology's normal.

Liberal arts educations (either at liberal arts colleges or hybrid schools) really encourage students to explore and develop their interests. If this sounds appealing, a liberal arts pedagogy volition probably be a expert fit.

A liberal arts educational activity is also a skillful choice if you lot want a flexible degree that won't necessarily hinder a diversity of task prospects across fields/disciplines. Amherst College doesn't have official pre-med or business organization majors, for example, but it nonetheless sends quite a few students to graduate programs in those fields.

Alternatively, if you know specifically what yous'd similar to do and know that you lot need a pre-professional degree to pursue your career of pick, a liberal arts degree may not be the most efficient way to come across your goals. Engineering is a prime number case - if y'all get a non-engineering degree (liberal arts or otherwise), you'd demand to double-dorsum to get the specialized education y'all need before advancing professionally.

You lot also don't demand to nourish a liberal arts higher or hybrid university to go a flexible degree - many traditional research universities offer degree programs that aren't necessarily pre-professional person (like English, Economics, or Romance Languages).

In sum: your career goals can inform whether yous want to go the liberal arts route or not, merely they don't necessarily make a liberal arts college better or worse than other school options.

Are y'all sure where you're headed, or are you lot still figuring things out?

Research Experience

Is it important that you become research experience equally an undergraduate? If you lot program on pursuing a graduate degree in a inquiry-heavy or competitive field (eastward.chiliad. if you want to go to medical school or get a PhD), it's important to go good research experience as an undergraduate. Information technology's easiest to do this at a research university.

Some traditional liberal arts colleges offer these opportunities, only yous'll want to scope relevant departments before committing to a liberal arts college.

For example, let'due south expect at Williams Higher (a top liberal arts college) versus Johns Hopkins Academy (a peak inquiry university that offers a liberal arts instruction to undergrads):

• Johns Hopkins University received 939 grant awards in 2014, making it the country'due south most funded academy by the NIH
• Williams didn't brand the list of the top 50 about-funded schools

Put merely, more grant money = more research opportunities. Research universities tend to get more funding considering they invest a lot of resources into producing research.

Target Major

Are you looking for something more than full general (e.grand. English, Romance Languages, History) or something pretty specific (e.g. Cognitive Science, Integrative Biology, Slavic Languages & Literature)?

Liberal arts colleges tend to offer fewer and more general majors because they're just smaller schools. Sometimes, though, they offer some unique and even niche options. For example,  Amherst offers full general options like American Studies, Economics, and English, only they also offering a unique major called Law, Jurisprudence, and Thought. In total Amherst simply offers 28 majors, whereas Arizona State University offers over 300 options.

Are you okay with non having a super specialized major (unless you're into one of a college'southward niche options)? Yous'd do alright at a liberal arts college. Do you desire more multifariousness and/or more than opportunity for specialization? A traditional enquiry university or a hybrid university may adjust you better.

Environment & Educational Experience

This is perchance the most important consideration. Would yous similar the hustle and bustle of a big university, with large lectures taught by large-proper noun professors? Or would you adopt something more than intimate, with smaller seminars taught by professors who are dedicated to teaching? What actually matters is what y'all are nigh comfy with. The merely way to actually figure this out is to visit a few schools.

To give you some examples, most of the summit liberal arts colleges are relatively small, whereas the summit research universities (hybrid or otherwise) are much bigger:

• Liberal Arts Colleges: Williams = 2,045 undergrads, Amherst = 1,792, Swarthmore = 1,542, Bowdoin = 1,805
• Hybrid Colleges: Harvard = half-dozen,694 undergrads, Princeton = 5,391, Yale = five,447
• Public Research Universities: UCLA = 43,000 undergrads, Texas A&M = 49,000

If you want something small and intimate, you would likely be happier at a liberal arts higher. If you desire something bigger and busier, public universities may be best. If you want something in-betwixt - a bigger campus but with opportunities for smaller classes - you might look into some of those hybrid options.

Now would be a good time to retrieve near whether you're cool with crowds.

What'south Adjacent?

Need more than guidance when it comes to picking the school that's best for you? Nosotros've got you lot covered. Read about whether it fifty-fifty matters where you go to college and how to get into your top-choice college. Set on a liberal arts school? Check out the peak-ranked liberal arts colleges.

One of the adjacent questions you may have might rising out of a more practical concern - y'all know how your experience may differ at a private liberal arts college when compared to other types of schools, but should yous expect any difference in cost? Learn more about different college expenses.

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About the Author

Francesca graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and scored in the 99th percentile on the SATs. She's worked with many students on SAT prep and college counseling, and loves helping students capitalize on their strengths.

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Source: https://blog.prepscholar.com/what-is-a-liberal-arts-college

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