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What Is a Liberal Arts Degree, and What Can You Do With It?
17/01/2025•12 minute read
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What Does Liberal Arts Mean?
Liberal Arts Degree Overview
Unique Liberal Arts Majors
Myths About Liberal Arts
Liberal Arts Degree Jobs
Continuing Education
Famous Liberal Arts Alumni
What is a liberal arts degree, and what can you do with it? What jobs can you get with a liberal arts degree, and what schools can you go to?
A well-rounded education is more valuable than ever in today's rapidly evolving world. A Liberal Arts degree offers precisely that, providing students with a diverse and comprehensive foundation across various disciplines.
In this blog, I'll explore everything related to liberal arts degrees. Let's get to it!
What Does Liberal Arts Mean?
In simple terms, liberal arts is an educational philosophy that cultivates critical thinking abilities above technical/professional skills alone. It covers a specific set of disciplines, including humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.
Liberal arts program are available at large universities & even technical schools, and sometimes as one program or college within the larger institution like Letters & Sciences at UC Berkeley, for example.
Liberal arts schools have lots to offer beyond just the liberal educational philosophy — including small discussion-focused classes, student-faculty collegiality, and often exceptionally strong and specific interdisciplinary programs like foreign language at Middlebury or ethnomusicology at Wesleyan.
Liberal Arts Degrees at a Glance
Generally, liberal arts subject distribution requires you to explore a variety of disciplines, broaden your perspectives, and identify connections across subject areas.
Most liberal arts degree programs offer interdisciplinary majors that are thematic in scope (such as social studies or classics). The College of the Moving Image at Wesleyan is a good example.
With a liberal arts degree, you'll usually choose a major and a minor:
- Major to work toward mastery of chosen field.
- Minor to develop a deeper understanding of a secondary interest.
There's potential for a lot of curricular freedom at many Liberal Arts Schools (e.g Wesleyan) where you may find no school requirements other than what's necessary to complete your major.
Sample Distribution Requirements (Williams College)
- 3 courses in Arts & Humanities
- 2 writing intensive
- 3 courses in Social Sciences
- 1 that examines how groups, cultures, and societies interact with, and challenge, one another
- 3 courses in Natural Science
- 1 to improve the ability to reason mathematically and abstractly
Examples of Unique Interdisciplinary Liberal Arts Majors
STEM focus:
- Bowdoin - Digital and Computational Studies: explores the impact of digital technology on society with technical skills in computing
- Middlebury - Environmental Studies: combines natural sciences, economics, humanities, and social sciences
- Williams - Cognitive Science: blends psych, CS, philosophy, neuroscience, and linguistics to study the mind and intelligence
- Wesleyan - Science in Society Program: combines history, philosophy, and social studies of science and medicine
Humanities/social sciences focus:
- Amherst - Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought: study of law, combining legal theory with perspectives in history, philosophy, and sociology
- Colby - Global Studies: study of global issues across anthropology, political science, and global health
- Wesleyan: College of Social Studies: combines history, government, economics, and philosophy (1 year of Western canon, 1 year of postcolonial/heterodox thought, 1 year ind. thesis)
- Wesleyan: College of Letters: combines European literature, history, and philosophy, from antiquity to present
Myths About Liberal Arts
Sometimes students are dissuaded from pursuing a liberal arts degree because of common misconceptions about the purpose of liberal arts study, about the value of a liberal arts degree, or about campus life at a liberal arts college. Let’s dispel some of the most common myths!
Liberal Arts: Common Misconceptions
| Myth | Reality |
|---|---|
| Only for art/humanities majors or only for undecided students | Liberal arts is a vast field, with many unique career and educational prospects. Liberal arts graduates are overrepresented as PhD students |
| Liberal arts schools are not highly ranked | Top liberal arts schools are among the best in the country, being included as part of the Seven Sisters Colleges and The Hidden Ivies |
| Too small, no social life | Liberal arts schools are generally lively with active student bodies |
| Liberal arts schools are not as well-resourced as universities | Top liberal arts schools pride themselves on their excellent faculty and resources |
| No career prospects, employers only recruit from ‘name brand’ schools | Many liberal arts schools have excellent reputations among employers and further education |
| Lack of diversity | There is no correlation between liberal arts schools and diversity, with some liberal arts schools among the most diverse |
What Can You Do With a Liberal Arts Degree?
Liberal arts degrees open up so many opportunities when it comes to your career post graduation. Generally, graduates either continue studying or start working in one of the many fields we'll talk about below.
Liberal Arts Degree Jobs
One recent report found that 80% of employers want their employees to have some experience studying liberal arts because liberal arts classes teach communication, critical thinking, and collaboration skills that today's prospective employers want!
The demand for liberal arts degrees is expected to remain steady in the coming years, with a steady annual growth rate of 2%.
Liberal arts programs are usually some of the least restrictive degrees when it comes to career choices. Graduates from liberal arts programs can work in so many different fields. A few examples:
- Education and Academia
- Journalism and Media
- Technology
- Healthcare
- Public administration
- Non-profit and social services
- Business and entrepreneurship
Popular Careers With a Liberal Arts Degree
| Job | Median Salary | Projected Job Growth by 2031 |
|---|---|---|
| Education Administrator | $89,130 | 5% |
| Secondary School Teachers | $62,360 | 5% |
| Managers | $99,290 | 6% |
| Lawyers | $127,990 | 10% |
| Postsecondary Teachers | $79,640 | 12% |
Based on data published by Haverford College, their liberal arts graduates worked in the following fields within one year of graduation:
Continuing Education
The other option for liberal arts graduates is to continue studying. Liberal arts graduates tend to be overrepresented at graduate/PhD programs — Reed college is the 3rd highest producer of PhDs in the US despite a student body of only 1500.
Besides that, as of May 2024: out of the top 50 schools in the U.S. for PhD production, 31 are liberal arts colleges.
Liberal arts colleges produce PhD students for different subjects:
Famous Alumni From Liberal Arts Colleges
- Amherst: David Foster Wallace, Joseph Stiglitz
- Bates: Robert F. Kennedy, Desmond Tutu
- Bowdoin: Jay Caspian Kang, Hari Kondabolu
- Colby: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Billy Bush
- Connecticut: Joan Rivers, Sean Spicer
- Hamilton: BF Skinner, David M. Solomon
- Middlebury: Jimmy Wong, Anais Mitchell
- Trinity: David Chang, Tucker Carlson
- Tufts: Tracy Chapman, Rainn Wilson
- Wesleyan: MGMT, Michael Bay, Lemony Snicket
- Williams: Stephen Sondheim, Goh Chok Tong
Is a Liberal Arts Degree Right For You?
A liberal arts school would suit if you like most of the following factors.
Academically:
- Like small classes, deep connection with faculty on 1-1 level
- Want to explore wide range of subjects or have not decided on your major
- Interested in undergrad research (in any field, not only lab sciences!)
- Interested in interdisciplinary learning
- Plan to pursue graduate school
Student Life:
- Feel at home in a close-knit community
- Seeking a certain school ‘personality’ (environmentally friendly, socially conscious, artsy, etc.)
- Love to be in an intellectually-stimulating environment
Finding the right program and school for you is tough. Our expert strategists guide students through their college application journey from A to Z - from picking the right degree and school to submitting the application. Students working with Crimson are 7 times more likely to gain admission to their dream school.
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About the Contributor
Abbigail Colwyn
Abbigail Colwyn is the Director of Global Admissions with extensive experience helping students gain acceptance to top universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, UCL, and other leading Russell Group institutions. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from Oxford University and a Master’s in International Social and Public Policy from LSE, where she graduated with distinction and received the Titmuss Award.
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