<p>There are many valuable ways in which one can spend the four years in which one is between the ages of 18 and 22. Depending on who you are, what you know about yourself, and what you want to accomplish in your life, a valuable educational experience is highly subjective.</p>
<p>However, when the OP talked about a liberal arts education, my impression is that they were specifically referring to the kinds of nose-in-a-book, Socratic discussion, Dead Poets Society version of an education. </p>
<p>What, then, defines a high-quality liberal arts education?</p>
<p>To me, a liberal arts education necessitates some kind of core curriculum/distribution requirement. If somebody goes to the gym and only works on muscle tone in their arms, are they a fit person? If somebody goes to a college and focuses his or her studies in only one area (or, more likely, only areas in which he or she already has a level of interest in), is he or she an educated person in the liberal arts sense, even if the classes in the subjects taken were good classes?</p>
<p>I am, of course, inclined to say no, as I quite badly wanted to go to a school with a core curriculum for exactly this reason. While other people want to be doctors and lawyers and teachers and bankers, I just want to be educated.</p>
<p>In addition to a core/extensive distribution requirements, I think that one has to consider in what ways the material tends to be presented. This sounds kind of silly, I guess, as most schools present most of the material the same way, but I think that sometimes slight variations say a lot about a school. I haven’t found Chicago to be as deviant in teaching style/teaching philosophy/grading philosophy as I have found it to be deviant in its course offerings. Chicago tends not to offer survey or introductory courses, and when it does, these courses take a more theoretical approach (my “Introduction to Art History” course would have been better titled “Introduction to discussing Art”) and probably half of the undergraduate course catalog is cross-listed with the graduate school. This is all very cool for me, and all contributes to my own understanding of what I want my undergraduate experience to be like.</p>
<p>On a side note, I haven’t found my classes at Chicago quite as difficult as I expected them to be so far, and much more lecture-driven than I would like. (I’m a year and a third in). That’s probably because I’ve been mostly in the wading pool, even at this point, and come this winter I’m expecting a much more intense courseload, as I’m taking higher level courses and courses in subjects I have no familiarity in.</p>
<p>Other schools that I think uphold the liberal arts tradition quite highly and emphasize the academic aspect of the undergraduate experience (even without a core in place):
–Barnard
–Bryn Mawr
–Beloit
–Oberlin
–Princeton
–Knox
–Earlham
–Yale
–Reed
–Wellesley
–Hampshire, Marlboro (for opposite reasons from Chicago)
–Swarthmore</p>