<p>This letter in today's WSJ:</p>
<p>Peter Berkowitz makes a case for the centrality of the liberal arts, but his narrow focus on the humanities dilutes his point. As a scientist and an educator, I know that liberal arts colleges produce a disproportionate share of prominent scientists. An ideal liberal education is not just a study of particular subjects, but rather a mode of instruction that teaches students how to bring together expertise and insights from a wide variety of disciplines, including the sciences, to focus on solving complexly interrelated problems. In today's world, this approach is essential.</p>
<p>Science must become an even more central part of liberal education. We need science leadership more than ever. Properly done, liberal education results in not only a more scientifically literate citizenry, but also more science majors among our businessmen and women, our attorneys and accountants, our bankers, poets, journalists and politicians.</p>
<p>H. Kim Bottomly</p>
<p>President</p>
<p>Wellesley College</p>
<p>Wellesley, Mass.</p>
<p>I came into Wellesley ready to major in Psychology and Japanese, and somehow I found myself majoring in Neuroscience, despite the fact I’m attending a liberal arts college. I always find it bizarre, you never know when science will snatch you up :)</p>
<p>I dabbled in physics for awhile even though I was a not a science fan (at all!) in high school. I think if I weren’t at Wellesley, I wouldn’t have had the courage to take a class in a hard science and continue on in it after the intro level course.</p>
<p>Aw, CC didn’t post the rest of my response. I’m just going to summarize since it was pretty long.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until I attended Wellesley that I realized that I had been the one stopping myself from doing things I thought I couldn’t do. I’ve seen friends not apply to internships because they thought they weren’t smart enough, but meanwhile their male counterparts applied just because they could. Studies show that in classrooms men are more likely to dominate. Women are less likely to ask for raises than men, but that’s another story. </p>
<p>At Wellesley I have all the support I need to counteract these problems. I told myself to shut up, and I applied to major in Neuroscience. I applied to the research positions I thought I couldn’t get, and ended up getting them.</p>
<p>Other perks:
-Clean, quiet dorms
-Boyfriend doesn’t distract me from my school work. When I want to go see him at MIT, I can, but when I need to get work done I can do that, too
-More food for us. Wellesley has a lot of awesome food, whether it’s brownies somebody made or delicious cake from the dining hall. Guys, however, eat everything in sight.
-Tons of campus resources directed towards females, such as sexual health/mental health/careers/etc</p>