Skip Navigation

College of Arts & Sciences

Liberal Arts

Going Somewhere? Take Liberal Arts Skills With You!

Going Somewhere?

Take Your Skills With You!

What will you do with your liberal arts degree? I plan to grow my skills as a writer and improve my communication skills for my career as a physical therapist. Morgan, english
My aspiration is to become a medical doctor who works overseas in impoverished countries, in addition, I want to work in an emergency room in the states. After seeing the disaster in Haiti, I know that I want to have the skills to help people around the world whose homes incur these disasters. Liz, international studies
What will you do with your liberal arts degree? I plan to liberate those without a voice. Joe, film studies
The College of Arts & Sciences is big and diverse. It encompasses a variety of majors and minors while giving students the option to pursue post-graduate options. The faculty are helpful and are really considerate of student needs. The College of Arts & Sciences is a viable vehicle through which to pursue knowledge. Jared, history and political science
The College of Arts & Sciences is the choiciest conglomeration of students with the broadest interests in the university. We tend to be most open-minded and explorative of all students. We are the colorful painting in the art gallery of UNL. Hilary, pre-nursing
What will you do with your liberal arts degree? Become a pediatric reconstructive surgeon! Arica, pre-med
The College of Arts & Sciences is exciting and always full of new ideas! Alyssa, psychology
Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliche about 'teaching you how to think' is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: 'learning how to think' really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. David Foster Wallace, writer, 2005
Home of the inventors, the linguists, the philosophers, the chemists. Home of those who use the right side of their brain and the left. Home of the driven, the inspired, the realists. Home of those with a desire to gain an understanding of the world. Liz Sutton, junior International Studies major, 2011
The only education that prepares us for change is a liberal education. In periods of change, narrow specialization condemns us to inflexibility - we need the flexible intellectual tools to be problem solvers, to be able to continue learning over time. David Kearns, Former CEO, Xerox, 2002
The American model of liberal arts education emphasizes freedom and experimentation as tools for students to develop meaningful ways of working after graduation. Many liberal arts students become innovators and productive risk takers, translating liberal arts ideas into effective, productive work in the world. That's what a liberal education is good for. Michael Roth, President, Wesleyan University, 2008.
To be liberally educated is to be transformed. A liberal arts education frees your mind and helps you connect dots you never noticed before, so you can put your own field of study into a broader context. It enables you to form opinions and judgments, rather than defer to an outside authority. Berkeley.edu, 2007
The top ten in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004. We are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist...who will use technologies that have not yet been invented...in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet. Tim Elmore, Founder/President, Growing Leaders, 2009
It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not really need a college. He can learn that from books. The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not in the learning of many facts, but in the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks. Albert Einstein, physicist, 1921.
Liberal arts teaches skills: how to write better, speak more persuasively, listen attentively, analyze, calculate, describe, and organize. John Agresto, President, St. John's College, 1999
A liberal arts education is what teaches people how to write and how to think and makes them much more valuable in the job market over a 40-year career. James Freedman, President Emeritus, Darmouth College, 2003