A Liberal Arts Education

The world has undergone phenomenal change in our lifetimes. Amazing technological advances allow you to communicate instantly from your dorm room with people living on the other side of the earth. The parents of many of today's college students saw the first travel into space, and your grandparents may remember life without television or jet airplanes.

Our attitudes and needs have changed along the way. Modern innovations have enlarged our vistas, stimulated our imaginations, and multiplied our options. As the world becomes increasingly complex and interconnected, we must not only keep up with current knowledge but also learn to deal with the unanticipated challenges of the future. A liberal arts education can help you to do just that; it can prepare you for a lifetime of change.

What should you expect from a liberal arts education? You can acquire genuine literacy, the ability to write and speak with clarity and force and the corresponding ability to interpret the written and spoken word with nuance and insight. Being exposed to many disciplines and the ways they interact can give you a vivid picture of the complexity of the world--natural and manufactured, past and present, close to home and far away. A liberal arts education can give you the capacity to make well-reasoned ethical and aesthetic judgments. It can help you to develop the qualities you need to be an informed and responsible citizen. And most important, through a liberal arts education, you learn how to acquire knowledge and to expand your understanding.

This website provides information on liberal arts studies in Northwestern University's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences (WCAS). You will find helpful information here throughout your four years at Northwestern.