<p>What's the point in attending an LAC when you can go to a more practical university? English, philosophy, psychology, etc. don't seem nearly as useful as engineering, finance, etc. Could someone please explain to me the benefit of attending a school like say... Vassar when you can get a more practical education elsewhere?</p>
<p>More individualized attention, smaller environment, tighter-knit community. Plenty of reasons. Plus, not everyone wants to major in engineering or finance. Some people do actually get degrees in English, psychology, etc., and an LAC can be a good place to do that for some people.</p>
<p>Well, it actually depends on your interest though. It may be impractical for you to take engineering if you are not even interested in Math.
Those who take Liberal Arts know the benefits they can get from entering this college although in real life though there will still be some challenges in finding jobs. However, you should assess yourself on what is really important to you and if you will really benefit in taking Liberal Arts.</p>
<p>Isn’t the ultimate point in going to college to get a good job out of it?</p>
<p>You can still get a good job after graduating from a LAC… A major in Psychology at a LAC can be a good platform for attending graduate or law school. Just because you attend a LAC doesn’t mean that you won’t get a good job… </p>
<p>Not everyone likes the big university experience and would instead prefer a smaller learning environment</p>
<p>I thought it was to learn.</p>
<p>If you name the best jobs available, I’m sure CCers here will be able to give many examples of LAC grads that are on equal or greater footing than a “more practical U” grad.
However, if you know you want to be an engineer and can do it for less than a LAC, go for it. Lehigh (LAC like), Bucknell, Lafayette, Union and Trinity are all LAC’s that also offer engineering…ABET Accredited.</p>
<p>High School is for learning. College is to focus more on what you want to do for the rest of your life and to help you start whatever that may be with success.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Should be to prepare to live a fulfilling life, and life is (much) more than what you do to make money or how much money you make.</p>
<p>“High School is for learning.”</p>
<p>Ha! No.</p>
<p>Hey, if you want to go to a university, go to a university. annasdad has it right, in my opinion. I’d rather be happy studying something you consider worthless than be unhappy making six figures as an engineer.</p>
<p>You know you can study math and science at an LAC, right? Grinnell has a 3+2 program with Caltech that makes me jealous of the Engineering majors.</p>
<p>W/ nearly 40% of recent grads virtually and literally unemployable and most liberal arts merely a conglomeration of group or area requirements, i.e. liberal education in name only, this question increasingly calls for genuine introspection and consideration. </p>
<p>The real issue is not the benefit of studying Western Civ or a French culture course … it is anything really being learned by the vast majority of students? Occasionally if not regularly.</p>
<p>We all know the old adage of “10 years out and that engineer’ll be working for a liberal arts grad.” Well, it sounds nice, plays well on naive, young ears. And … “back in the day” when over 50% of students attended private, liberal arts colleges, well the odds were pretty good in a non-techno society. Today, with 85% going to lower cost, public mega-versities … the chances of working for a LAC grad are ever-slim. And at this point, it’s no longer some ephemeral argument about “learning for life”, blah blah blah. The exception may be that Ivy Leaguer CEO who studied philosophy @ Brown … and the Chairman of his company is better known to him as “Daddy.”</p>
<p>^^It’s worth noting that among recent college grads, the major with the lowest unemployment rate is Education, a traditional backup for liberal arts graduates, and the among the ones with the highest is Business: [The</a> College Majors That Do Best in the Job Market - NYTimes.com](<a href=“The College Majors That Do Best in the Job Market - The New York Times”>The College Majors That Do Best in the Job Market - The New York Times)</p>
<p>The notion that a college education involves amassing content within a variety of separate disciplines is an outmoded relic of the 19th and 20th centuries. Content is now online; it’s available to everyone, everywhere instantaneously. Education for the 21st century involves combining that content, communicating about it, and collaborating with others on work teams. Most technical fields will teach skills that are likely to be obsolete in five years. A large proportion of this spring’s HS grads will find their vocations in fields that don’t yet exist. Learning about a specific vocational field without a broader social context is not a recipe for success in the 21st century. </p>
<p>Relatively few professionals base their careers - careers, that is, not entry-level jobs - on bachelor’s degrees any more. At the undergraduate level, a liberal arts background is the most practical education possible. It’s specifically education in the critical thinking and communication skills that never become obsolete.</p>
<p>My d is a science major at a LAC. This summer she obtained an amazing internship at a company in the nanotechnology field. In addition to using high-tech instruments and collecting data, etc., they have asked her to write a user manual for one of the instruments. Thanks to the intense emphasis on critical thinking, writing and communicating at her LAC, she was able to say, “Yes, I can do that!”.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Properly taught, the technical fields should give students enough base knowledge that they can quickly learn new technologies in their fields as they appear. Computer languages come and go, but someone who knows computer science can adapt to changes easily, for example.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>However, not all liberal arts colleges or other schools ensure that that their graduates have a well rounded liberal arts education. For example, Amherst’s “open curriculum” means that there is less assurance that an Amherst graduate has had a well rounded liberal arts education than an MIT graduate who has had to fulfill the general requirements there, regardless of major. Interestingly enough, Brown makes at least a small attempt to ensure that its engineering majors are well rounded, but no attempt for other majors. Grinnell is another school that makes little effort to ensure that its graduates have taken a well rounded liberal arts education there.</p>
<p>If you know you want to be an engineer or pursue STEM studies that is fantastic, but there are many, many seventeen year olds who have idea what kind of work they want to do for the rest of their lives. A liberal arts education is ideally, general, and from there you can make a more educated decision about where you want to go. It gives you more options in the long run, I think, especially since most STEM type jobs require graduate school eventually anyway.</p>
<p>As far as the argument about the only LAC graduate you’ll ever work for will be one working at their daddy’s company…that sounds so sad and bitter to me! Not everyone can be a scientist or an engineer. And not everyone can be a sales person, a fundraiser, a marketer, a leader, or CEO or a founder of a company. You might be a LAC graduate and do those things. You might start as an engineer and go on to do those things. But I don’t think the Liberal Arts are in any danger of dying out any time soon. I also think that in such a tech-oriented society individuals with the ability to write well, speak well, and use an understanding of psychology to negotiate with others will be more in demand than ever. So, if you want to be an engineer/scientist–go do it! If you’re unsure, think twice about attending a college that might limit your options later, or think that you would like a larger arena for your ambitions, LAC’s might be great for you.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If the only tool in your belt is a hammer, all the world’s problems tend to look like nails. One-tool technicians can get stuck in career ruts without the flexibility to change directions.</p>
<p>Technical training is great for teaching students how to do things. Knowing how to assess what things are appropriate, warranted, ethical, and wise for the long run are things that discussions and debates around the liberal arts help to develop. The guy who predicted that the apocalypse was coming May 21st is a civil engineer from Berkeley. I’m sure that he has the technical skills to design a viable bridge, but I doubt that he ever learned how to critically assess and weigh the relative merits of ideas. A liberal arts undergrad degree combined with subsequent technical training is a great strategy.</p>
<p>
Says who?</p>
<p>And, why can’t “what you want to do with the rest of your life” be based in the liberal arts? The world can’t function with only STEM workers.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, many STEM type jobs can be done with a bachelor’s degree.</p>
<p>As far as the liberal arts education giving more options, that is only if the liberal arts education is well rounded enough to include STEM subjects as well as humanities and social studies – unfortunately, many students graduate with only a course or two of the “physics for poets” type. Without a basic grounding in math and science, a student may be shut out of STEM subjects for future education or job and career. And those making business or policy decisions in areas relating to STEM subjects need to have some means of understanding the subjects that they are making business or policy decisions about.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, what are commonly called liberal arts colleges can be limiting for some students. For example, a student who wants to go deep in a particular subject, perhaps taking graduate level courses in that subject, may find the undergraduate-only emphasis of many liberal arts colleges to be unsuitable for his/her needs. A large university with a well developed graduate program in that subject may be more suitable for such a student, who can still take plenty of liberal arts courses alongside his/her major courses.</p>
<p>Certainly, they liberal arts colleges have advantages for many students. But breadth and depth of academic offerings are not typically among those advantages when compared to large universities.</p>