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What is the value of a liberal arts education?
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"Education doesn't make you happy, nor does freedom. ... It opens our eyes, our ears. It tells us where delights are lurking – convinces us that there is only one freedom of any importance whatsoever, that of the mind, and gives us the assurance, the confidence to walk the path our mind, our educated mind offers."
Iris Murdoch, Writer and Lecturer
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In job markets today, the value of a liberal arts education can be shown in many ways:
- It develops an ability to understand a situation from several different points of view, and to see matters in a larger perspective.
- It teaches the capacity to understand humans' technological decisions in human terms, to make decisions that enable people to live together more humanely.
- It shows the recognition that most failures are a breakdown, not in the productivity of a system, but a deterioration of the relationships among the people who inhabit the system.1
With a liberal arts education, you will build a foundation of skills that you can apply in nearly any profession. Employers are looking for individuals who can communicate, think critically, analyze, influence, work independently and in teams, adapt, learn, create. These are skills that never become obsolete, and that's important in this fast-changing world. A liberal arts education will prepare you to be a lifelong learner.
1 Adapted from the Keys to Liberal Arts Success by Dr. Howard Figler
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