<p>I'm an admitted student in the college of arts and sciences. As you know, the deadline for making the course preference almost there, and I would very much appreciate some help or advice</p>
<p>I applied to college of arts and sciences, because I didn't really know what I want to study, so I decided to go with the liberal arts program. Can anybody tell me how is that program and is it useful? Because I am also interested in the school of business or the school of communications. I want to do something creative, but as I said, it might be something with business or communications, and I'm not sure the college of arts and sciences provides the major I would like to choose after all yet it provides the liberal arts education.</p>
<p>Can somebody please give me any advise? I am an international student, so I'm not absolutely aware of the educational system and programs offered. I hear it's very useful to study business in the United States. But what to choose better, something particular like business or communications, or something wider at the beginning, meaning, the liberal arts?</p>
<p>I’m a rising junior at UM so I’ll just give you my perspective on this. The only “liberal arts” majors I know are football players or people who failed out of their respective program. You are right that it is a broader major, but the requirements for it seem to be pretty lax. </p>
<p>If you’re interested in Business, you can easily switch to the Business school and see how you like that. If you don’t, you can always switch out. And if you want a broad education, maybe you can major in something business related and double major or minor in something in the arts and sciences school.</p>
<p>Ok, so, there’s not a really strong liberal arts program?
So business school would be the better choice? How is the business program? And what about communications school? I heard that you can be in the business school and still take classes in another school, is that right? But thanks so much for your answer!</p>
I think the idea of a strong liberal arts program is incoherent. Generally program strengths are expressed in terms of the strengths of their faculty, but there is no such thing as a liberal arts faculty member, or a PhD in liberal arts, so you can’t measure the the strength of the faculty. The closest thing to doing so, it would seem, is to measure the overall quality of the University and its faculty (which is presumably expressed in our USNews ranking).</p>
<p>IMO, you’re looking at this all wrong. Business, communications, and liberal arts are incredibly different majors. You should pick whichever one will best serve you in a future career that you’ll enjoy, noting that each is likely to lead to widely varying career paths. The only real overlap between all of them is attending law school.</p>
<p>Agree with rankinr. My D had U Miami as her second choice last year. Didn’t wind up going to UM, but did lots of research on the biz school. It was an up and comer one to 2 years ago, until the Dean went back to Wharton @ Penn. I dont’ know who replaced her so you should do some web surfing to find out who the new dean is, and what’s going on with the biz school. There is good potential there, i’ll at least say that.</p>
<p>The new dean at the the School of Business came from UM’s Ross school. He has made some changes, but as far as I know, the program strengths in ethics, to the Bermont-Carlin Scholars and the business law program are still moving along well.</p>
<p>The key to getting the most out of your education is getting into a top-flight part of the school. I can say unequivocally that a former Bermont-Carlin scholar, when on a recruiting trip with their firm, is going to be looking for another Bermont-Carlin scholar to introduce to the people who start the hiring process. Firms want to be able to go "back to the well’ for great candidates who have the same drive and commitment that their current associates have…They don’t have the time nor inclination to sort the wheat from the chaff.</p>
<p>Good news about UM is that it is not very difficult to transfer between schools as it is just a matter of moving your “file” between the departments. So for example, if you are in nursing and what to move to business, it is just an internal transfer of your file from nursing to business and you don’t need to reapply to the school of business, etc… Same if you want to move from business to engineering- again, you do not need to apply to the engineering school but instead your “file” is just moved to the new department. I am sure I am oversimplifying this as I am sure you need Dean’s permissions etc… but at least you do not need to do any formal application as you would need to do at many schools. For example, at BC if you are in liberal arts and want to change to business, you need to file a whole new application as if you were a transfer student and you may not be accepted! Good Luck.</p>