The Value of a Liberal Arts Education

Noted psychologist Carl Rogers once remarked that "the only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change." A liberal arts education meets that test by equipping students with the skills, knowledge, and perspective needed to understand, work, and thrive in a world undergoing the most rapid rate of transformation in recorded history. The last half century alone has witnessed conceptual revolutions in countless fields that are reshaping our daily lives, including information technology, biology, physics, astronomy and more. Our economy is globalizing, our culture is diversifying, and the information available to us through books, media, and the internet is exploding. We have never before had such broad opportunities or such an urgent need to connect with and comprehend unfamiliar ways of thinking, valuing, and communicating. A liberal arts education positions students to make such connections and to enjoy the lifetime of learning they entail.

Our majors are intended to provide students with important options by laying a foundation for graduate school, professional school, or the world of work. Students can choose from a wide range of subjects and disciplines, including art, economics, cultural studies, computer science, languages, journalism, speech, psychology and much, much more. There are more than 70 departments, centers, and programs in our college, and each of them offers a first-class education that complements the classic liberal arts values of clear communication, careful reasoning and judgment, and unsurpassed intellectual versatility.

Although it is an excellent preparation for professional life, a liberal arts education offers much more than preparation for the first job after college. Completion of a liberal arts degree is the first step in a life-long educational journey that balances academic achievement with personnel development and civic engagement. Liberal arts graduates are well-prepared to contribute to the common good and to play an active role at any level of public life. They also have the broad educational background necessary to make full use of their capacities and to set and achieve the kind of personal goals that characterize lives of distinction.