Getting a Liberal Arts Degree What Degree Do You Get After 2 Years of College?

A liberal arts degree is about freedom. That liberty comes from both the spirit of academic enquiry that goes toward your intellectual interests and the flexibility to have your life and career in any management. For many, that all starts in their undergraduate years with a liberal arts major. Springing from some of the most cherished and oldest ideas virtually liberty of thought and responsibleness that built the gild we live in today, a liberal arts education still has a lot to offer, both in terms of enrichment and career preparation.

Our mod ideas of who is worthy to be free are a lot more than liberal than those of the Greeks and Romans. But the ideal that a republic demands well-rounded, thoughtful citizens has stayed amazingly like. An active participant in civil society today nevertheless needs the power to participate in public contend, to serve on a jury, to understand laws and legal proceedings, to communicate with their peers.

When liberal ideas of equality, rights, and responsibilities became widespread in Western societies, the obligation of that order to offering the education to see those responsibilities became the public schoolhouse systems we have today. They teach the sort of wide, general knowledge you need to be strong participant and contributor to society, and do it by encouraging private thought, reasoning, and discussion.

Earning a dedicated liberal arts degree puts y'all in line with a long tradition of thinkers and innovators.

The Liberal Arts Degree Has Shaped Western Civilisation

The fact that a liberal arts degree was the predominant class of pedagogy for hundreds of years in the Western world ways that most of the historical figures y'all admire were probably liberal arts majors. Before Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain held Little Circular Peak for a Union victory at Gettysburg, he graduated in liberal arts from Bowdoin. Despite struggling in Latin and Greek, Teddy Roosevelt graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with a Available of Arts—and put an indelible stamp on American history in politics, environmentalism, and global diplomacy.

Liberal arts majors make history.

A liberal studies major graduates with the tools they need to make an impact on the earth. And the philosophy, morality, and ethics concepts they report along the style helps them utilise those tools wisely.

A Liberal Arts Education is About How You Learn, Not Just What You lot Acquire

Liberal arts instruction isn't but about the title of the degree. In large part, it represents an thought about the best ways to both teach and learn. Information technology's such a widespread and widely-accepted concept that you're probably already more than familiar with it than you might realize.

The thought of liberal arts teaching as we feel it today predates the universities that offering liberal arts degrees by thousands of years, going all the way back to ancient Greece.

Socrates, the same guy that said "The unexamined life is non worth living," made a name for himself continuing effectually and examining life with students all day.

This wasn't all that dissimilar from any other random philosopher in a robe, but Socrates had a kind of organisation in his teaching. Rather than standing upwardly in front of a oversupply delivering lectures all day, Socrates would put himself in the heart of a grouping of his students and simply discuss things with them. And rather than giving them all the answers, near of his part of the conversations consisted of asking questions… questions designed to make the educatee think, to evaluate the field of study at hand, to examine their ain thoughts and understanding.

This, the so-called Socratic Method, has become the ground for most American education, not just for liberal studies majors. The idea that debate and discussion can uncover noesis and stimulate critical thinking is such a foregone determination in schools today that it'south entirely possible that no one ever told you that y'all were engaged in a key aspect of liberal arts education.

Statue of Socrates in Athens The mod university system, and the very system of degrees, came pretty firmly out of the liberal arts tradition. The medieval universities that came upwardly with the degree system in the starting time place were entirely defended to didactics the liberal arts—the only real course of curriculum that existed at the time, apart from theological studies.

The rediscovery of the writings of Aristotle in the 12th century fired upward thinkers in Western Europe. The Renaissance was underway, sparking new fine art, new science, and new technology. The ideas of ancient philosophers was heady new stuff, and scholars wanted to get together to talk about it.

Universities already existed by this time, primarily educating clergy and teachers themselves. Only the incorporation of Greek philosophies stressed learning through dialectical reasoning, or debate. Previously, rote learning and lecture dominated education. But by the early mod period, almost all secular universities had developed collaborative investigation and the exchange of ideas as their educational model. That created exactly the base of inquiry and study that you recognize as a university today.

What Makes a Liberal Arts Major Different From Other Caste Programs?

If about college degrees today follow a liberal arts pattern, so what is it about liberal studies majors that make them dissimilar?

Liberal arts majors today have a wide latitude in both what and how they written report. A liberal studies major might have a focus or concentration in areas like arts and humanities or natural scientific discipline and mathematics, but no ready curriculum that they are required to complete. Instead, they may build out their own platonic course of written report with the guidance of counselors and faculty advisors.

Liberal arts degrees are designed for students who are mature enough to participate in guiding their own pedagogy.

Earning a liberal arts degree means being self-motivated. A liberal arts didactics builds y'all into a more cocky-assured, more capable, more competent graduate than a degree that was tightly scripted in a specific field.

Online Liberal Arts Degrees Are Offering New Options for Liberal Studies Majors

Because a liberal arts education is aimed at a more mature prepare of students, it only makes sense that online liberal arts degrees are condign more and more than common. Mature students might be slightly older, and mayhap already out in the workforce. The kind of flexibility needed by those students to fit their studies in effectually personal and professional person obligations is exactly what an online liberal arts degree can offer.

A liberal arts education revolves around interaction with professors and other students.

At first glance, yous might think this kind of interpersonal contact suffers in online programs. But in fact, going online only opens up the means yous can engage with professors and peers. Internet-based communication isn't limited to class time; y'all tin burn off an email with your thoughts whatever time of the mean solar day or night, or drop in on a chat channel in the wee hours of the morning time to come across who else is upward and jazzed about your latest reading assignment.

Location-contained studies also increase the diversity of the people you find yourself interacting with. You lot'll go more than opinions, broader perspectives, and more than interesting ideas from fellow students scattered across the country, or even from effectually the world.

The Curriculum in a Liberal Arts Degree Covers Both Mod Developments and Classic Thought

Liberal arts has grown far beyond the basic subjects that the ancients came upward with. Pythagoras wouldn't recognize the course of written report at a mod liberal arts college (although he was a brilliant guy and could have figured it out after yous taught him some English language).

So what does the modern equivalent of a liberal arts curriculum look like? It probably won't surprise you that different colleges come at it from different directions. In fact, it should thrill you! The free and fair contest of ideas is essential to liberal arts.

I thing you can always say about a liberal arts education is that it's going to be well-rounded. Coursework is eclectic, drawing on all the core field of study areas in the arts and sciences. So you lot can expect classes in areas such as:

Writing and Literature

Communications are a key part of every liberal studies curriculum. You'll larn by example hither by studying literature from a wide variety of sources, seeing how other authors get their concepts and ideas across. You'll too exist expected to demonstrate proficiency in your own written communications in a multifariousness of discipline areas.

History and Society

Not only is it a great idea to learn the patterns of history to avoid mistakes that your predecessors take fabricated, simply agreement the world around you includes learning how information technology got that mode. That makes history a key component of liberal arts curriculums. You will look at both global and national historical events likewise as more full general pictures of what the overall human experience might accept been at unlike points in the past. You'll describe lessons from those events as well as draw lines between them and the way that club is structured and operates today.

Foreign Languages

Early liberal arts studies all happened in Latin, so learning a foreign language was a necessity for studying in the first identify. Lucky you, you get to acquire all these classes in your own native tongue at present… merely near liberal arts curriculums still include some foreign language report requirements.

Philosophy and Logic

Expect classes in thinking almost how to think. Liberal arts programs deconstruct themselves through coursework in philosophy and reasoning. At the aforementioned fourth dimension you are going through a programme designed to deepen your disquisitional thinking skills, you will be expected to think critically about it. These classes will expose you to thoughts and theories that form the ground of why you lot are studying liberal arts in the first place and how that instruction works.

More Disciplines

Education & Human Development

Liberal Studies Degrees at Every Level – Associate, Bachelor's, Master's, Doctorate

Math and Sciences

People don't associate liberal arts studies with math or science, but they are key pieces in every liberal arts curriculum. Facts matter in debates, and learning the scientific method is the best way that the human race has learned for determining them and so far. Calculation, estimation, and basic elements of fields ranging from information applied science to construction are fundamental parts in the education of a well-rounded liberal arts scholar.

Creative Arts

Art and music are both forms of expression that take been an important function of homo experiences throughout history. You lot may or may not exist the creative type, but either way you'll written report how fine art and artistry happen and have evolved, and how they are both influenced past and reverberate the culture they exist within.

Associate Liberal Arts Degrees Prepare Y'all For Higher-Level Studies or Entry-Level Work

Liberal arts associate caste programs are two-year courses of written report that offer an eye-opening introduction not just to the arts and sciences, just to the promise and potential of college. These degrees are designed to offering a sense of taste of the different types of specialties and academic interests that are bachelor in liberal studies. You lot can cover everything from theology to astronomy in an inexpensive two-year program.

Many associate degrees in liberal arts are available online today, then even if your local community higher doesn't offer 1, y'all have a range of choices to pick from.

Choices are actually what these degrees are all about. Non only exercise they offer y'all flexibility and more types of electives to cull from than a typical associate caste, but they also betrayal yous to dissimilar fields you might later pursue in a four-year program. And they do it at a much lower cost than attention a 4-year higher.

Better withal, an associate degree sets you up to transfer to a total four-twelvemonth plan with one-half of information technology already out of the mode. Your 2 years of study may not simply give you an idea of what direction you desire to take if you choose to continue your teaching, but also put you ahead of the pack by fulfilling the requirements for the get-go two years of your bachelor's program.

A Available'south-level Liberal Arts Caste is The All-Purpose Toolkit to Life And Career Advancement

Bachelor of Liberal Studies degree programs take the kind of broad-based exposure to different arts and sciences that you get at the two-year level and drill down with more than advanced coursework and more than choices to really let the learning soak in. Bachelor's liberal fine art majors get the full spectrum of math, art, and science to build their knowledge of history and society to a high level. With more credits to fill up, you'll find more electives and the time to dive deep into everything from the literature of the Southern gothic to young adult novels. A liberal studies major at the baccalaureate level is likely to include a concentration in a more specific discipline. You tin can find programs with focus areas such equally:

These programs offering you a preparation similar to what you lot would find in a bachelor'southward degree with those majors, only with a twist: your primary focus will exist analysis and the context within which the field exists, non that raw technical knowledge that only reflects today'due south agreement of it.

That focus gives you an edge in helping decide what those fields volition wait similar tomorrow.

Master's Degrees in Liberal Arts Offer a Master Class in Creative Thinking

Main of Liberal Studies programs can take anywhere from two to five years to complete, and can be put together to cover any of the same kinds of concentrations yous find at the bachelor'south level. In fact, most master of art in liberal studies (MALS) or principal of liberal studies (MLS) programs offering fifty-fifty more flexibility in designing the kind of curriculum that best matches your goals and interests in the liberal arts. At the graduate level, you start to go more of a strength in your own education. A master's degree doesn't come without significant levels of contained enquiry and idea. You got the basic tools for these processes as an undergrad, and at this level you're expected to put them to use. That culminates in a master's thesis, a tightly written, persuasively argued written work that you will take to defend in forepart of a committee of experts. Your thesis has to be original, well-reasoned, and fully supported by the evidence. The very process of crafting that work will put your disquisitional thinking and analytical skills into overdrive… and prepare you to shift careers or take yours to the side by side level.

Earning a Doctorate in Liberal Studies Puts Graduates in an Aristocracy Group of Thinkers

The Doctor of Liberal Studies is a rare degree in the United States, and there's a expert reason for that: these are tough, interdisciplinary programs that require smart, driven students. Unlike undergraduate liberal arts programs, or even many master'south degrees, DLS degrees rely extensively on your own motivation and willingness to build a course of study out of zippo in order to claiming yourself and explore your interests. Every DLS is unique, tailored to the field of interest and expertise of the student. Your course of study besides has to involve coming upwardly with original thoughts and making intellectual contributions to your field, expressed in a dissertation that might take the majority of your five to seven year plan to research and write. Doctors of liberal studies don't come with any established post-graduation career path. If y'all've gotten to this level of liberal arts, yous are ready to forge your ain style.

A Certificate in Liberal Arts Polishes Your Previous Educational Efforts With Well-Rounded Perspectives

Not anybody has the time or the need to go back for a full degree in liberal studies after having already earned a degree in some other field or having enjoyed a full career that didn't require a degree. For students who are hungry for life-long learning experiences and interested in expanding their range and potential, a document in liberal studies offers a quick, cheap opportunity to practise just that. These certificates typically take less than a year to consummate and run from xv to 20 credits, although those credits volition not usually exist counted toward a degree if you lot modify your mind. The subject field in these programs can exist diverse. Y'all tin can find certificates that drill down into ethics and critical analysis, honing your critical thinking and philosophical skills. Simply there are others that dive into:

Post-baccalaureate certificates frequently come with the aforementioned flexibility to pattern your own program as the MALS and MLS programs they are based on.

Online options are particularly strong in liberal studies certificate programs.

No matter what kind of degree or what field of liberal studies you choose to pursue, fix to have your mind opened and your cognition expanded. No one tin tell you what you lot should do with a degree in liberal arts; no one tin tell you there's anything you lot can't do with 1, either.