Formal and informal contact with the good people in Student Affairs can make all the difference. However, the heart of liberal arts education is the interaction of students and faculty, and the heart of that interaction is the curriculum, the course of study a student must follow. It is only a statement that the recipient has successfully completed a certain course of study Perhaps the most difficult thing to understand about liberal arts education is why it involves the course of study it does. The reasons for the last two seem fairly obvious. A student must prepare for a career in the real world and the major is that preparation.
Electives offer students the chance to pursue areas of interest and enjoyment.
What is puzzling are the general graduation requirements. Not only is it difficult for business majors and math majors to understand why they are required to take courses in the fine arts, and music majors to see why they must take courses in science, most students don t understand why anyone should be required to take courses such as philosophy. The problem here is that the ultimate goal of a liberal arts education is misunderstood. Nor is the goal to allow and encourage students to develop their own interests and passions. Both of these things may in fact happen in a liberal arts education, but if they are all that happens, or even the most important things that happen, something has gone terribly wrong.