Many people don’t understand what is meant by an education based in the liberal arts. Liberal arts classes help shape professionals into critical thinkers, empowering them with the confidence and flexibility to face new challenges, learn new skills and creatively problem-solve.  And these are critical skills for sustained professional success.

In fact, one HSBC business executive at a recent Buffalo Business First panel said, “Those who can read, write and think will always have a place in a crowded market.” He went on to say that it’s the “hard skills” that help students find their first job, but the “soft skills” that allow for continuous growth and professional development. And those soft skills are built through coursework based in the liberal arts.  

The liberal arts may refer to a specific degree or to a philosophy and set of classes rooted in the humanities, arts, and natural and social sciences. Daemen College has adapted this philosophy into a “core curriculum,” with students learning about ethics, critical thinking, global perspectives and more in addition to courses related to a specific major such as Accounting, Education, Nursing or Social Work. Ultimately, this approach prepares students for today’s competitive market and teaches them how to think and learn independently so they’re able to adapt to an ever-changing and evolving professional landscape.

The liberal arts are all about education in multiple disciplines for a well-rounded background. For example, let’s say you know you want to go to medical school. You may decide to major in biochemistry or biology for your undergraduate degree. By taking a liberal arts-based curriculum, you’ll have many additional experiences that can help you be successful. Once you become a doctor, you may rely on a past ethics course to better relate to patients and their struggles. If you decide to open up your own practice, you can use all that you learned from your global perspectives course to understand different cultures. And you’ll be able to write and present your own research findings at medical conferences. That is the type of intellectual flexibility a liberal arts base provides.

Some colleges can have lectures with hundreds of students, making it easy for students to get lost in the shuffle and hard to stand out. A college like Daemen, focused on whole-student learning and life-long success, is developed around smaller class sizes and inclusion. That means more focus on students as individuals, more one-on-one face time with professors, and plentiful access to research opportunities, even as an undergraduate.