Choosing a liberal arts major is an excellent move for a college student who wishes to gain all the benefits of a strong liberal arts education. There are multiple traditional majors that fit the bill, and perhaps the easiest way to determine what they are is to look back at the history of the term liberal arts and the way in which its primary areas of study were defined.
The original organization of the arts was as follows:
The Trivium
1. grammar
2. logic
3. rhetoric
The Quadrivium
4. arithmetic
5. astronomy
6. music
7. geometry.
From these subject areas, we now have a wide variety of majors that can be classically-defined within the broad category of “liberal arts majors”. Some of the most popular majors are:
Anthropology
Art
Art History
Biology
Chemistry
Chinese
Creative Writing
Dance
Economics
English Literature
French
German
History
International Studies
Mathematics
Medieval Studies
Music
Philosophy
Physics
Political Science
Psychology
Religion
Sociology
Spanish
Theater.
There are many others, of course, but you’ll notice that these are broad areas of study that aren’t tied to a very small number of professions.
Majoring in a liberal arts area of study means that you are receiving a broad education that is intended to teach you how to think on your feet, do real-world skills such as research and writing at a top level of proficiency, and that you can do these things in many work environments – not just one or two.
I’ve known people who majored in such esoteric areas of study as French and Art History who went on to become very successful business people, doctors, and attorneys. The point being that you don’t have to be a teacher of German if you major in German. A solid education in a liberal arts major gives you the ability to do anything, anywhere…or at least anywhere that you speak the language!