Liberal Arts Degrees

[timetosnooze]

DD is on a gap year and applying for Liberal Arts courses grades in hand - she meets entry requirements for all. Currently working on her PS. Any feedback on this course at Bristol, Exeter, Leeds, Nottingham, Birmingham, Liverpool or elsewhere would be much appreciated. The uni decision making process has been very prolonged - hence the gap year!

DD is doing Liberal Arts at Durham because that was the only way she could achieve her particular subject combo (a humanities + a language). She’s very much enjoying it. There is one compulsory LA module - can’t remember what it’s called but it’s the kind of thing she likes. That takes up 20 credits. Then she has 60 credits on her language and 40 on her humanities subject. Let me know if there’s anything your DD would like to ask her.

In helping my daughter research liberal arts I went to about 10 open days / liberal arts talks. What I can tell you is they are all very very different - your daughter needs to decide what she is looking for from a liberal arts programme and go from there. I really liked the Nottingham teachers / course as it seemed to have the most breadth of choice across various departments but I’ve been reading recent news reports of strikes so that might put me off. I also really liked Exeter but they have a limitation of you need to choose your major before you start (seem to be the only uni that does) which is fine if you know where you want to focus your efforts not so fine if you don’t. Exeter also seem to steer towards humanities and seem light on the ground with science / maths.
also liked Birmingham but they said at talk they were changing elements of the programme (last year) and it looked like my daughters interests would be dropped - but I am guessing the programme has changed now.
all liberal arts programmes involve a compulsory language element.
also, if your daughter knows where she wants to focus her interests compare that degree programme to others. At our liberal arts Warwick talk I discovered that they don’t send their students to different departments within the uni they taught them the unit themselves. For example the sociology department is in the next building along from liberal arts department at Warwick but the liberal arts students are taught socilogy separately to them. No idea why but I confirmed with Warwick socilogy department this was true - they did not teach liberal arts students.

This link has a bit of feedback about the different courses

www.mumsnet.com/talk/higher_education/5184467-liberal-arts-recommendations-please

Nottingham claims that its liberal arts programme offers the widest range of optional modules, but it's just announced the closure of its languages and music programmes, so it's not looking like an institution that really supports the arts and I'd be a bit wary of enrolling in an interdisciplinary arts degree there.

Any feedback on this course at Bristol, Exeter, Leeds, Nottingham, Birmingham, Liverpool

Any of those universities will give her an exceptional education. We're very lucky in this country that the top 50 universities (approximately) are world class and students will be challenged, and taught by academics doing ground-breaking research.

My experience of teaching LA students is that they need to be more independent & proactive about their degree structure & module choices, as well as pastoral issues. Most students have a "home" department of the discipline they're reading, where their friends and favourite staff members are easily accessible. It'll take a bit more independence as a LA student, although a good LA programme will offer a pastoral structure with an identified programme lead - usually a pretty senior academic (at my place it's generally a senior Humanities professor).

DD is in her 4th year at Bristol doing the MLibArts. She was abroad last year. She loves it and loves Bristol. She was advised by a person who teaches at Oxford to look at this degree because it is so open ended. You do need to be very organised though as you’re not necessarily with the same course mates all the time.