A liberal Arts Education

A liberal Arts Education


 One of the  defining features of a  US university education is the liberal arts  focus.
 The term "liberal Arts" is highly misunderstood and often maligned. It dates back to an era where education options were mostly vocation trades and the  term liberal arts was used   for all non vocational   education. A liberal arts education  meabs that students are exposed to  a variety of disciplines from  the humanities to sciences. The emphasis is on  developing a strong appreciation for various  studies and often involves having to work in interdisciplinary ateas   such as cognitive science where   physical sciences such as neuroscience and  humanities such sd linguistics  are both involved.A liberal arts education also stresses  team work rather than pure individual effort. At some smaller liberal  arts colleges , the professors also act as  team members .

 The university of Chicago, and Columbia University are two  institutions that take great pride in the core curriculum   that all students must go through a common core curriculum  in the beginning and   this helps foster a spirit of working together

 This article by Barry Schwartz, a professor at Swarthmore  presents a well thought out and structured argument fpr  a liberal arts education.     Appropriately enough  learning to   articulate and express  your opinions in writing is one of the main benefits of a liberal arts education.

 It is argued  that in today's modern economy that  students should   be taught job skills for  high paying professions, but a world of  venture capitalists,software engineers and  hedge fund managers would be a dull place.
 Regardless of profession , successful people are very good at a handful of skills

•   communicating with people
• disciplined work habits  and ethic
•   ability to  acquire new skills
• getting things done

 It should be fairly obvious that a  strong liberal arts background   offers a   very strong foundation for  fiture professional  success  regardless of profession chosen.
 The   main advantage of a liberal arts  approach  is that the faculty is primarily focussed on teaching  undergraduates and not  on their research  and work with graduate student labs.