Colleges that prioritize the humanities side of liberal arts

[Anonymous]

Yale is a great idea for this student. You’ll have a lot more tailored humanities support at Yale compared to almost any lac.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LACs often feel like they need to prove that they’re strong in STEM; people don’t understand that the liberal arts include most STEM disciplines (except for engineering), so the schools sometimes overcompensate on tours. And as another person mentioned, science buildings are often the shiniest and most impressive.

I would recommend doing deeper research into their humanities offerings before discarding these excellent schools.

I think people are right in correcting op, but they aren’t totally wrong. As a grad of one of the institutions they mentioned, there’s so much more emphasis on science and math than the past. My Alma mater went from a very humanities heavy institution to a majority Econ-math college that just doesn’t reflect the college I went to.

It’s really disheartening to see how pre professional students are. I get consistent LinkedIn requests asking for coffee chats and career advice and this only started in the past 10 or so years.

Can totally see this.

Conversation I recently had with a Student at my Alma mater:
“How was the career center when you were a student”
“Career center? It didn’t exist? We probably would’ve laughed if anyone entered a career center back then”
“Well, how did you get jobs?”
“We just…did.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LACs often feel like they need to prove that they’re strong in STEM; people don’t understand that the liberal arts include most STEM disciplines (except for engineering), so the schools sometimes overcompensate on tours. And as another person mentioned, science buildings are often the shiniest and most impressive.

I would recommend doing deeper research into their humanities offerings before discarding these excellent schools.

I think people are right in correcting op, but they aren’t totally wrong. As a grad of one of the institutions they mentioned, there’s so much more emphasis on science and math than the past. My Alma mater went from a very humanities heavy institution to a majority Econ-math college that just doesn’t reflect the college I went to.

It’s really disheartening to see how pre professional students are. I get consistent LinkedIn requests asking for coffee chats and career advice and this only started in the past 10 or so years.

Can totally see this.

Conversation I recently had with a Student at my Alma mater:
“How was the career center when you were a student”
“Career center? It didn’t exist? We probably would’ve laughed if anyone entered a career center back then”
“Well, how did you get jobs?”
“We just…did.”

Ha! Totally relate. Kids these days are extremely rehearsed they freak out about the future in a way that young adult me would’ve been annoyed with. Get your degree first, and figure it out!

[Anonymous]

Those schools will still have great humanities - ignore the STEM sell

[Anonymous]

Be very careful when looking at smaller schools for the humanities. We learned the hard way. For majors such as history, where there is no set of required core courses in the major, the classes offered depend solely on the interest of the faculty. So if the department is small, odds are there will not be a lot of classes of interest until your student's interests match up really well with one or two of the professors'.

[Anonymous]

Also, Vassar, Wesleyan, Bard…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Be very careful when looking at smaller schools for the humanities. We learned the hard way. For majors such as history, where there is no set of required core courses in the major, the classes offered depend solely on the interest of the faculty. So if the department is small, odds are there will not be a lot of classes of interest until your student's interests match up really well with one or two of the professors'.

Never heard of this in any decent lac

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're frustrated with Pomona, because they didn't take you into a humanities seminar? I don't have any connection with it, but it certainly invests heavily in the humanities: Just from one google search https://www.pomona.edu/administration/humanities-studio
https://www.pomona.edu/museum/about
https://colleges.claremont.edu/thehive/
https://www.pomona.edu/arts

Their English department also invests heavily in knifing each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're frustrated with Pomona, because they didn't take you into a humanities seminar? I don't have any connection with it, but it certainly invests heavily in the humanities: Just from one google search https://www.pomona.edu/administration/humanities-studio
https://www.pomona.edu/museum/about
https://colleges.claremont.edu/thehive/
https://www.pomona.edu/arts

Their English department also invests heavily in knifing each other.

I’m sure the students are fine to be in a rich department and professors with too much time on their hands.

[Anonymous]

Univ of Chicago’s required core curriculum is intense and reminds me of philosophy classes I took in college. In one semester the first year, our daughter read Aristotle, Plato, St. Augustine, Durkheim, Arendt, and Freud. I’m sure I’ve forgotten many. https://college.uchicago.edu/academics/core-curriculum

[Anonymous]

Universities are where you go for the humanities. Lacs have moved toward the hard sciences, math, and social sciences.

[Anonymous]

If your son simply might want to choose a maximum intensity of humanities studies, then he could do this at an LAC with an open curriculum, such as Amherst or Hamilton. At schools of this type he could take all, or nearly all, of his classes in humanities fields.

[Anonymous]

My DC attends a university known for STEM, especially engineering. However, she is a humanities major and receiving what I consider a fabulous education. The liberal arts colleges in many "tech" schools are often excellent and have a wide breadth of majors and class choices, as opposed to small schools that have much narrower offerings. I attended a SLAC myself and the difference between the opportunities her school has offered and my own experience is night and day. I highly recommend a larger university for liberal arts majors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC attends a university known for STEM, especially engineering. However, she is a humanities major and receiving what I consider a fabulous education. The liberal arts colleges in many "tech" schools are often excellent and have a wide breadth of majors and class choices, as opposed to small schools that have much narrower offerings. I attended a SLAC myself and the difference between the opportunities her school has offered and my own experience is night and day. I highly recommend a larger university for liberal arts majors.

So you think liberal arts colleges are useless?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC attends a university known for STEM, especially engineering. However, she is a humanities major and receiving what I consider a fabulous education. The liberal arts colleges in many "tech" schools are often excellent and have a wide breadth of majors and class choices, as opposed to small schools that have much narrower offerings. I attended a SLAC myself and the difference between the opportunities her school has offered and my own experience is night and day. I highly recommend a larger university for liberal arts majors.

So you think liberal arts colleges are useless?

You are swimming against the consensus here on DCUM. Most believe that an elite SLAC provides a better undergraduate experience.