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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Many of the CTCL schools place an emphasis on the liberal arts and sciences. It’s an asset to have some popular CTCL choices in VA and MD. [/quote]

The vast majority of colleges and universities in the USA either require a liberal arts education, or make it available to those in a CLAS (in contrast to undergrad business schools or something like Georgetown SFS). The exception are very specialized, pre-professional schools like Colorado School of Mines.

98% of people graduating with an undergrad degree in the USA have a liberal arts education. [/quote]
This whole thing is based on a false belief among adherents of the liberal arts (insert your preferred name here) that somehow studies in tech, non-pure sciences, engineering, nursing, medicine, business, etc are "vocational" and therefore not as "intellectual" as the pure liberal arts/humanities/etc. When in fact every one of those programs contains a strong core of the liberal arts (language, history, literature, etc) and then add to it. Critical thinking? Everyone of those "vocational" programs requires logical and critical thinking as a minimum ability to succeed. In fact, I would argue that when did my ER and ICU clinicals, for example, and had to serve gunshot victims or children who had been brutually beaten..I was gaining perhaps even more critical thinking skills than the English majors back on campus reading Middlemarch ;)[/quote]

Ok, no need to get defensive. When did I say any of that? I didn't get a liberal arts degree, so trust me -- I'm not saying they're superior to anything else.

Definitionally, a liberal arts degree is different from a pre-professional or technical school. That's a fact. It doesn't mean one or the other is more intellectual or one teaches critical thinking and the other doesn't.

It's simply an educational tradition that began in Germany and then was adopted in most US undergrad institutions.

If you don't believe me, here's the Wikipedia definition:

Liberal arts education (from Latin liberalis "free" and ars "art or principled practice") is the traditional program of education in Western higher educational institutions.[1] Liberal arts today consists of four types of areas: the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Its central academic disciplines are physics, biology, philosophy, logic, linguistics, literature, history, political science, psychology, mathematics, and many others. Liberal arts education can refer to overall studies in a liberal arts degree program or to a University education more generally. Such a course of study contrasts with those that are principally work-related, vocational, professional, or geared towards a technical training.[/quote]

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