In the 5th century AD, seven liberal arts disciplines were defined by Martianus Capella as grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy and music. It is from these seven disciplines that many college programs were created and combined into more specialized trades. While some institutes offer such studies through a two-year associate’s degree program, some larger traditional universities offer them in the form of a four-year bachelor’s.

Liberal Art Skills
Liberal art schools, both online and traditional, offer classes designed to build upon your logical thinking and intellectual aptitude through general, or liberal, knowledge. This is different from vocational or technical training which emphasize specific vocational skills and knowledge. A career in this area will include an emphasis upon those topics commonly taught in the Arts and Sciences or Letters and Science, such as languages, history, literature, mathematics and history.

Most courses offered at a traditional university will have a foundation in liberal arts and will require that you take a certain number of courses in each of the disciplines. The goal is to provide a broad base of knowledge to help build critical thinking and reasoning skills that will positively contribute toward your major. Colleges are labeled with the traditional categorization due to their emphasis in the undergraduate programs.

Education in Liberal Arts
As impractical as a liberal arts bachelor’s or master’s degree may seem at first, many individuals have become writers, psychologists and mathematicians. Liberal arts majors are proving more and more popular among the business sector due to the many applications these classes provide. A psychology degree could be used within a human resources department, private practice or social services. On the other hand, mathematics could be used in finance, statistics and operations research. These fundamental disciplines help pave the way for a diverse range of careers. An associate degree will give some emphasis on a particular discipline, depending on your concentration, or major. The traditional four-year programs that many employers prefer, however, are given the title of “Bachelor of Science” or “Bachelor of Arts” to signify the coursework completed.

Career Paths
The liberal arts have applications both in the academic realm as well as in the professional world. While many professionals later find themselves drawn back to the college setting as professors and researchers, you may just as easily find your calling in a business setting. Contribute to the furthering of your field and consider a bachelor’s degree in one of the following careers.

• American Studies
• Anthropology
• Archaeology
• Art History
• Biochemistry &  Molecular Biology
• Bioinformatics
• Biology
• Chemistry
• English/Creative Writing
• English Literature
• Environmental Science
• General Arts & Sciences
• General Studies
• Geography
• History
• Human Biology
• Italian
• Languages & Literature
• Languages Other than English
• Liberal Arts
• Library
• Literature
• Mathematics
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Social Sciences
• Sociology
• Spanish

Liberal arts degrees were founded upon education that encourages and teaches you to think for yourself and learn continually. They help to put the world around you into perspective. They give you a telescope, rather than an open and closed book, with which to question even the smallest detail. Jobs today require knowledge and experience in more than one field. A college program in liberal arts will give you that edge to traverse the industries while still retaining skills that matter most in your chosen line of work.