Why Study the Liberal Arts?
"The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks." - Albert Einstein
What is a Liberal Arts Education?
Working towards a baccalaureate degree in the Liberal Arts or Sciences involves taking courses in what are traditionally referred to as the "Liberal" Arts. This means that your courses will be in general areas of study--philosophy, mathematics, literature, history, economics, languages, and so on--rather than in applied or specialized fields.
A Liberal Arts education is not intended to train you for a specific job, though it does prepare you for the world of work by providing you with an invaluable set of employability skills, including the ability to think for yourself, the skills to communicate effectively, and the capacity for lifelong learning.
What Will I Study as Part of a Liberal Arts Education?
You will study a variety of subjects, looking at the world and its people from various points of view. You will learn about ideas and beliefs that have guided human beings and shaped civilizations for thousands of years. You'll ask yourself questions like:
- What does it mean to be human?
- What have humans done, thought about, and felt?
- What is truth and beauty, and what are their value to life?
- How have we been shaped by, and how have we shaped, our physical and natural environment?
- What skills, methods or techniques can be used to examine the world and its people?
A Liberal Arts education is by nature broad and diverse, rather than narrow and specialized. Choosing courses from many disciplines gives you a wide and useful education.
In the first year, a Liberal Arts student normally takes a variety of introductory courses. This not only gives you a wide knowledge of subjects but helps you to choose certain areas for further study. In most cases, you will be encouraged to take courses in at least some of the major categories within the Liberal Arts:
- Humanities (English Literature, Foreign Languages, History, Philosophy)
- Social Sciences (Black Studies, Economics, Geography, Political Science, Sociology)
- Creative Liberal Arts (Fine Art, Theatre, Speech, Creative Writing)
- Sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Math)
Liberal Arts studies at UNO also requires students to choose a major - a specific group of thematically-linked courses. By concentrating on a given subject, whatever it may be, you will go beyond the mere surface of things and gain a solid grasp of the core material in a given area.
Why Should I Pursue a Liberal Arts Education?
This is the big question: Why Liberal Arts? Why not Engineering? Or Nursing? Or Computer Science? There are numerous ways to answer this question, and ultimately the utility of any answer will depend upon your own circumstances.
For you, studies in the Liberal Arts may provide the necessary practical skills that you will apply on the job; or they may prepare you to move on to a graduate or professional school. For others, the key value of a Liberal Arts education may be the personal satisfaction and fulfillment that studying philosophy or art makes possible. Still others will be able to excel in today’s global business world because the foreign language skills developed in their Liberal Arts education gave them an important edge.
Indeed, the reasons for pursuing a Liberal Arts education are as many as the number of potential students. What you need to ask is what you want to get out of postsecondary education. If you want to get a solid, broadly-based, general education that will improve your analytical, communication and learning abilities, then the Liberal Arts may be for you.
What About Skills Training?
You have probably heard a lot of talk lately about how important it is to get the proper "skills set" so that you can be immediately attractive to an employer. Some think that the goal of a postsecondary education should be to provide you with as much specific training as possible before you arrive on the job, thus relieving potential employers of the costs and risks associated with hiring untrained workers.
In light of this perception, many students balk at taking general Liberal Arts courses and choose instead to focus narrowly on a vocational or professional area of study. This can be an excellent choice. There are many rewarding and fulfilling careers that one can pursue with the help of a first-class vocational or career training program.
But make sure that you are making your educational choices for the right reasons—those that are best for you. If you are shying away from Liberal Arts courses because you think that you need training in specific skills to get a job, you may be mistaken.
First, a Liberal Arts education does provide you with tangible, practical skills that employers value highly. What's more, you will obtain skills and knowledge that are never obsolete. The world is changing rapidly and there may be a danger in preparing yourself too narrowly to fit a certain slot that may not even exist by the time you get into the job market. Meanwhile, the underlying skills, abilities and attributes fostered in the Liberal Arts are always relevant.
What Skills Will I Learn by Taking Liberal Arts Courses?
The list of skills, abilities, capacities and attributes normally associated with a Liberal Arts education includes, but is not limited to, the following:
- Analytical and knowledge-building skills
- Evaluative and critical thinking skills
- Creative thinking skills
- Effective oral and written communication skills
- Critical and reflective reading skills
- Problem-solving and pattern intelligence skills
- Numerical skills
- Synthesis skills and the ability to express the results of analysis and evaluation
- Ability to pose meaningful questions that advance understanding and knowledge
- Ability to conduct research and organize material effectively
- Information literacy and other skills associated with learning how to learn
- Independent judgment and ethical decision-making
- Ability to meet goals, manage time, and complete a project successfully
- Self-confidence and self-understanding
- Ability to cooperate with others and work in teams
- Sensitivity to individuals and tolerance of cultural differences
- Ability to use sensitive and technical equipment
- Informed openness to new information technologies
Where Can a Liberal Arts Education Take Me?
A Liberal Arts degree prepares you for hundreds of careers. Your opportunities are limited only by your imagination, your interests and your willingness to devote time and energy to your work. Of course, a Liberal Arts degree can also take you to the top graduate and professional schools.
Liberal Arts courses are often required for anyone who pursues a professional degree, and a high percentage of Liberal Arts graduates go on to take further education. This is not surprising, since the Liberal Arts serve as a foundation for most vocational or professional studies at the university.
For example, programs in accounting, business, education, journalism, and law are built upon the knowledge and skills that come from fields that make up the Liberal Arts. Accounting and business depend upon mathematics and economics; education derives from psychology and sociology; journalism requires a knowledge of English and history; and law builds upon political science and philosophy.
Will a Liberal Arts Education Make Me a Better Person?
A Liberal Arts education will enhance your knowledge and improve your understanding of the world and its people. Many say that knowledge leads to wise action, perhaps even to goodness. Thus, a Liberal Arts education may help you to perceive and to understand your shortcomings, allowing you to become a better citizen, friend, spouse, parent, human being.
Liberal Arts courses often enable students to reach beyond their own experiences and imagine worlds far distant in time and space. By opening your eyes, ears and mind, a good Liberal Arts education can strengthen in you the virtues of tolerance, sympathy, and respect for others.
A Liberal Arts education will equip you to participate effectively in your community. It can also help you to engage in the controversies of our time--whether about the environment, cultural diversity, social justice, ethnic strife, gender relations or foreign policy.
Can a Liberal Arts Education Make Me Happy?
It would be ridiculous to make any promises of a carefree future, but a Liberal Arts education can contribute to your happiness. Studies in the humanities offer an obvious preparation for leisure and life beyond the world of work. A good Liberal Arts education increases your capacity to understand and enjoy humanity’s cultural and scientific achievements.
It also contributes to the pleasure you can get from the world around you. Studies in your Liberal Arts program can increase your awareness and appreciation of literature, music, personality, nature, art, symbolism, wit, historical allusion or figurative language.
But more than that, a good general education allows you to see things whole, to provide a context for seemingly meaningless or isolated events. This may sound like an abstract benefit, but it is just this orientation for knowledge that might reduce the confusion and frustration that comes from being unable to put into context an event, decision or phenomenon that you encounter in your daily life.
Perhaps this helps explain, to a certain extent, why studies consistently show that educated people have, statistically, happier relationships, lower rates of depression, less loneliness, and a higher degree of satisfaction with life.
But is a Liberal Arts Degree Worth It in Today’s High-Tech World?
A Liberal Arts degree is valuable in itself, but also teaches many of the skills and abilities that are needed in the contemporary workplace. That is why managers in business, industry and government appreciate the value of a Liberal Arts degree in potential employees.
They recognize the importance of what are often called "employability skills." Reading, writing, listening, speaking effectively, knowledge of language, critical thinking, problem-solving, basic numeracy, information literacy and the capacity to continue to learn for life--and know that UNO Liberal Arts programs have always concentrated on just these skills.
Students, too, understand that Liberal Arts Faculties tend to do the best job in developing these general employability skills. That is one of the reasons that students continue to vote with their feet by enrolling in Liberal Arts programs in high numbers.
Still, there is a perception out there that technical trainees get high wage jobs in their fields while Liberal Arts graduates face high unemployment or can find only low wage jobs that do not use their university training. A common stereotype portrays the poor Liberal Arts grad stuck in a dead-end McJob. In fact, this is a gross misrepresentation of labor market reality. More than ever, an undergraduate college education is a sound investment. Recent studies in both the U.S. and Canada have demonstrated that a high level of education translates into higher income over a person’s lifetime. These studies show that most university graduates, including those with Liberal Arts degrees, have lower unemployment rates and higher lifetime earnings than people with only high school diplomas or technical/vocational credentials.
But there is more to it than a simple link between education and income. A recent study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) points to what it calls "literacy skills" as the key factor that pays off in any job.
Literacy, in this sense, involves the types of skills that are fostered in Liberal Arts programs: the ability to understand and use prose, to analyze documents, and to work with numbers. The report, entitled Literacy Skills for the Knowledge Society, contains data comparing the literacy skills of people in 12 countries. It finds that the ability to comprehend and use words and figures plays a strong role in determining wages, especially in countries like Canada and the United States.
It is worth noting, however, that low literacy rates can be found even in people with higher education. The report points out that your educational credentials may get you a job in the first place, but having strong literacy skills will make you the kind of productive and useful employee who rises through the ranks.
Moreover, workers with high literacy skills can adapt more easily to changing circumstances, making them less vulnerable to unemployment and more likely to be high income earners. In a rapidly changing, information-based economy, the benefits of literacy cannot be overestimated.
What Should I Do?
Only you can know what is best for you at this time in your life. Still, you should explore all of your opportunities, including a Liberal Arts education. Talk to your advisor. Speak with friends, relatives or co-workers about their educational experiences.
Read up on the trends and developments that might influence your decision. Admissions officers can help you get into the areas of your choice. And financial aid or awards officers can advise you on how to access scholarships or student loans.
Whatever you do, don’t let opportunities pass you by because you have failed to get the material you need to make an informed choice. But remember, a postsecondary education can be expensive. It is a lot of work. And it represents a major investment of time and energy.
So don’t waste your money or your time doing something that you really don’t want to do. You will be happier and more likely to succeed if you follow your heart, do whatever you do for your own reasons, and look at a postsecondary education for what it is: an opportunity for you to grow and develop as a human being.