• Due to ongoing issues caused by Search, it has been temporarily disabled
  • Please excuse the mess, we're moving the furniture and restructuring the forum categories
  • You may need to edit your signatures.

    When we moved to Xenfora some of the signature options didn't come over. In the old software signatures were limited by a character limit, on Xenfora there are more options and there is a character number and number of lines limit. I've set maximum number of lines to 4 and unlimited characters.

What is liberal arts?

American

Guest
Joined
Jul 24, 2001
Messages
3,831
In many years of higher education (I went to DeVry and Beyond! ©), I have yet to figure out what a liberal arts degree means. Ok, so people often apply subject concentrations, but what's the point? If you're going to go for, say, a biology concentration, then go for the kill and get a BS or an MS...

Am I missing something? Is it not a fluffy degree, or can it actually get you hired? Most importantly, how will your salary compare?

I have the impression that the broader your degree, it doesn't mean you can do "anything" with it, it actually means more like you can do nothing with it.

Am I way off the mark? :confused:
 
Liberal Arts is best defined when Morticia Addams is being interviewed by an employment agency in "The Addams Family". She states her majors were curses, potions and hexes. The interview then responds with "Ah, Liberal Arts."
 
Degrees granted vary from institution to institution.

Where I attended undergrad, I earned a Bachelor of Arts in science, because the 'pure sciences' were in the School of Arts & Sciences. Meanwhile, other students were earning a Bachelor of Science in Engineering, over in the school of Engineering. :rolleyes:

In many fields of biology today, it is possible and even common to go straight from a bachelor's degree to a Ph.D. without getting a Master's in between. That's what i did.
 
Many years ago I was told by someone that a degree in "Liberal Arts" made a person well-rounded and capable of being employed in many fields.

I then remembered that both my parents had degrees in liberal arts. My father had majored in linguistics, with emphasis on French... every time he left the Army to work, no one hired him to do anything better than clerical work.. so he went back into the Army (where his multi-language skills were put to use). My mother got a Bachelor's of Fine Arts... she did work as a window designer for a while, but her best paying jobs were from her clerical skills.

That is why both my brother and I majored in engineering. To me this is one field where you can get a better rounded education. From not only the required writing, social studies and humanities classes... but also getting math, science, technology and computer classes. Our friends who majored in things like "English" and "Political Science" were able to graduate with less math and science combined than the "Humanities and Social Studies" credits that were required of those of us in the College of Engineering.

I've known engineering grads to go one to get Master's of Business Administration (MBA) degrees, law degrees, medical degrees and the orthodontist my kids see got her undergrad degree in mechanical engineering. Not every Liberal Arts degree allows that.

By the way, ArcticPenguin, the university I went to awards both Bachelor's of Arts and Bachelor's of SCIENCE degress, in the College of Arts and Sciences. The main difference are the graduation requirements.

Once upon a time when I was employed by a large corporation that employed lots of engineers and scientists (especially in chemistry and physics). One time a newly hired woman came to a few of us female engineers griping to us that the Materials Group would not permit her to be higher than a tech-aide. The conversation sort of went like this:

BA Chem: Those jerks won't promote me to full scientist!!

BS Aero/Astro Engr: Why?! (shocked... only a bit)

BA Chem: Because I have a Bachelor of Arts in chemistry, not SCIENCE!!

BS Elec. Engr: Why did you do that?

BA Chem: Because it was easier.

Silence as both engineers turn around rolling their eyes and in chorus: "Sorry, we can't help you with that!"

By the way, this same company also refused full engineer/scientist status to a couple of other folks... one who had a BS in Agricultural Engr. and another with a BS in General Engineering. Though I heard through the grape-vine that after 5 years of work and being given higher levels of responsibility that the BS General Engr. guy was promoted from tech-aide to engineer (it goes with a big boost in salary).
 
Liberal Arts Degree

What's the point of a liberal arts degree? It teaches you to think. It teaches you to think and to solve problems and ask questions from a variety of perspectives.

After all, isn't our world all interlinked? Just because someone isn't a scientist doesn't mean that a good knowledge of English or a foreign language or even art is not useful. For instance, there's a company called "Molecular Expressions" run by a scientist down in Florida. The scientist makes millions by taking microcsopic pictures of the crystal structures of alcoholic beverages, moon rocks, etc. and by slapping these images on ties, bedsheets, etc. He's both scientist and artist!

As for myself, I am currently working on a liberal arts degree at a wonderful school. I'm not sure what other liberal arts programs are like and I understand that a liberal arts degree is not for everyone, but I've had nothing but a great experience so far.

I'm a geology major and planning on going to grad school, most likely for geochemistry. I do work hard in my major classes, but I also don't feel that non-science courses jeopardize my science education. What's one of the great parts about a liberal arts education? I'm also an Arabic major. Majoring in two completely different subjects is common, actually, at my school. I have two possible career options: Arabic translator or science grad student. Two bets are always safer than one in this unshaky economy!

While I love science, I also love English, History, and Art. Attending a liberal arts school allows me to take classes in subjects I enjoy but would not otherwise study. Why? Because I have to get a job! Admittedly, "Art of Japan" or "History of Antarctica" may not directly help me obtain a job upon graduation, but I am a firm believer that a liberal arts degree will.

Why? Because I see the corporate recruiters circle like hawks around the senior students! I have a friend who was an English major, French minor who recently was offered a job with the CIA... go figure. Another alum I recently met was a physics major but now works as a business man in the computer industry. He hasn't been to business school. He said that he doesn't use his physics degree at all, but he does use some of his liberal arts knowledge every day. Much of business, sadly, is politics: if you are good at thiking, you might just be able to play that business game well...who knows? Maybe someone you're trying to impress or coerce into a business venture is a collector of ancient Japanese kimonos or obesessed with Ernest Shackleton's adventures in Antarctic... in any case, that liberal arts knowledge can't hurt, can it?

I suppose I'm a little biased because I'm a geek and love school. I've seen the liberal arts system work for me (although I haven't graduated yet and tried my luck in the "real world", so I suppose I'm still floating in Oz...) and for my friends, though. I have other friends, though, who did much better in technical schools or arts schools... depends on who you are, I suppose.

That's my two cent soapbox speech for the present....
 
By the way, my school defines itself as a "Liberal Arts School."

All they give out (aside from grad degrees, of course...) are Liberal Arts degrees. You can be Pre-Med or Pre-Law, of course, and requirements vary from major to major, but the general requirements (as much or more work than your major) are the same for everyone from engineers to film majors.
 
Old joke.
B. S. = obvious.
M. S. = More of Same.
Ph. D. = Piled Higher and Deeper.
 
Just a little tip from someone with a liberal arts degree: that should be "what are liberal arts?"
 
Back
Top Bottom