What a Liberal Arts Education Means to Me
One of the biggest decisions of your life will be the academic institution you choose to pursue your education in. Simply put, taking your time with that decision is an essential (although not defining) step to your success during your undergraduate years. And honestly, it’s one of the biggest pieces of advice I can give: Know the schools you are interested in like the back of your hand. However, I did not know this two years ago as I went to rank colleges for the QuestBridge National College Match. Lo and behold, I matched to Tufts University, but it honestly wasn’t like what I had expected. I began to search why, and before long, I got my answer: Tufts University is a liberal arts college. I had NO idea what this meant, so I took to countless articles, blogs, and reddit posts to attempt to comprehend the concept (to no avail). After (a bit more than) a year of being at Tufts University, I can confidently say that I both understand and adamantly believe in what a liberal arts college is, does, and prepares students for.
While several differences exist between liberal arts colleges and other types of higher education institutions, the most significant distinction lies in their underlying philosophy. A liberal arts college, with an emphasis on undergraduate studies, strives to create individuals with a broad academic background, a set of soft skills, and the ability and willingness to change the world for the better. This is all sounds fine and well, but what does it mean? Like many things, a liberal arts education is what you make of it. To me, a liberal arts education means not being confined by a specific concentration in which I may want to pursue. I ended up on the Biology / Community Health double major, but going to a liberal arts school gave me the opportunity to (truly) explore my options. While pre-requisites across a bunch of fields (such as humanities, social sciences, history, world civilization, and math, to name a few) may seem daunting or tedious to some, I’ve found value in being pushed to take classes across a wide range of disciplines. As a Biology / Community Health double major, I know the basics of coding in Python. I know some Portuguese, have taken Psychology and Linguistics classes, and even managed the math requirement! This is because, while there are required discipline groups you must take classes from, there is an incredible amount of flexibility within them. I am terrible at math, so I took “Logic,” a math class that did not have a single number in it. People who may not like the natural sciences have taken classes such as “Big Bang to Humankind” or “Dinosaurs!”.
In essence, a liberal arts education is tailored to you. Tufts recognizes that no two people are alike, and therefore, a flexible education that allows for unique pathways to STEM is essential to achieving success. Over the past year, I’ve come to appreciate how a liberal arts education shapes not just what I know, but how I think and approach the world, preparing me to carve my own path and make a meaningful impact on it.