Lean into the Liberal Arts!

I urge you to embrace the liberal arts and the myriad possibilities available through majoring in these thought-provoking subjects.

Read this fantastic overview and defense of the liberal arts from Cecilia Gaposchkin, Professor in History at Dartmouth College. Here's a pertinent excerpt:

A liberal arts education is not a technical training in a particular subject matter that leads to a particular job and career trajectory. It is not a nursing degree. Or an accounting degree. Or a degree in computer systems administration. This does not mean that a liberal arts education will not prepare you for a career. It just doesn't prepare you for a single career. Indeed, what it does is prepare you for any multitude of careers. It is precisely because holders of liberal arts degrees are not pigeon-holed into a single vocation and thus a single career path that they have the enviable ability to make and take new professional opportunities.

A liberal arts education encompasses all academic disciplines, including the humanities, the social sciences, and the sciences (everything from engineering, to chemistry, to computer science). In fact, a liberal arts education is defined precisely by its multitude of disciplines, which invites multiple ways of thinking about the world, about knowledge, and about "truth."

Some colleges and universities are innovating in terms of combining the liberal arts with pre-professional disciplines. For instance, Oberlin College, a fantastic small liberal arts college in Ohio, will offer a Business major starting in the fall of 2025:

The new program breaks from traditional lecture-based business education by immersing students in real-world projects and case studies, and direct engagement with industry partners.

As evidenced by the popular business integrative concentration, the Business major was created in response to strong student demand and complements Oberlin's new Financial Economics major that welcomed its first students this fall.

And Boston College introduced their Human Centered Engineering degree in 2021:

The Human-Centered Engineering (HCE) program provides students with a technical education that is human-centered, design-process driven, and focused on applying engineering knowledge to solve complex global problems.