<p>Maybe this is a stupid question, but when you graduate from a liberal arts college, is it a liberal arts degree? I know from a university you get a bachelors in arts or a bachelors in science, is that the same with a liberal arts college?</p>
<p>You typically get a B.A. though, science majors may graduate with a B.S. depending on the school. </p>
<p>You get a bachelor’s degree. Different schools may call it “of arts” or “of science”.</p>
The sciences are part of the liberal arts. It’s under this principle that some colleges resist awarding bachelor of science degrees for even tbeir science majors.
At my school (Swarthmore) everyone but the engineers got a BA. The engineers got a BS. Honestly, very few folks care about the name. It’s a bachelors degree.
The only crazy thing about that is I’ve known some of the general public to associate the term arts only with fine arts. I don’t know how common this is, but I’ve certainly encountered it.
If you do a degree in fine arts you get a BFA. Some LAC’s grant both BA and BFA; some grant both BA and BS; some grant all three; some grant only BA. In other words, it isn’t about the distinction between a LAC and a large university, but about choosing different programs of study.
Maybe I shouldn’t have used the term fine arts, because that’s not exactly what I’ve actually encountered. I’ve met people who think a liberal arts college is a place where you go to paint and dance, and maybe put on an occasional Shakespeare play.
So, if I majored in biochemistry, but it was a bachelors of arts, would that matter to prospective employers/graduate schools?
No. They would know enough to treat a BA and BS equally. Think of this as the linguistic equivalent of getting a PhD, a Doctor of Philosophy, in a science field.