Liberal Arts: The Edge Every Student Needs in a Tech World

Depending on your child’s subject interests in school, it is normal for a parent like you to nudge your child towards taking up a traditional professional undergraduate degree like engineering, medicine, law or finance. Rightly so, because it comes across as more professional specific, and points towards a definite type of career ahead. Having said that, in the recent past we have noticed, fresh graduates with these specific degrees even from known universities are finding it hard to break into the job market.

This could be due to the slackness in the job market and countries becoming more inward, but keeping that aside, it is also true that companies are not eagerly scouting out for entry level workforce with only speciality skills. Many are utilising their virtual employees – Artificial Intelligence – to do this work. As per Mckinsey & Company’s findings 2024, current generative artificial intelligence has the potential to absorb work that takes 70% of employees’ time today.

However, what employers are keeping their eyes out for are graduates who can instead bring a breadth of knowledge, be creative and adaptive to the dynamics of the changing world. This might explain the resurgence of the value of the liberal arts education in the corporate world.

Relevance of Liberal Arts

This style of education as the name suggests “liberal”, advocates exposure to a diverse range of ideas, opinions, beliefs, and philosophies, that contributes to well-rounded personal development. In case you think liberal arts education’s focus is primarily on humanities, you will stand corrected as they provide strong and diverse STEM programs as well. In fact, originally this education was known as the liberal arts and sciences.

Despite liberal arts covering sciences, it has been heavily criticised and continues to be by some groups on its inability to produce career ready individuals. Critics argue that they offer majors in traditional subjects that do not promise an impressive income future. For instance, a major in economics versus a pre-professional major in business offered by a university.

It is not surprising to hear parents questioning the ROI of liberal arts education for their children stating that salaries may not be as high as an applicant from a STEM degree. But few are realising that while not immediate, liberal art degree holders will also see a great ROI, and this is only set to rise with the world being increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence.

Going Hand in Hand

For future graduates to ride the artificial intelligence wave, it is important to be aware that humanities and arts need to be integrated into STEM. Often referred to as STEAM, it brings innovative human centric advancements in a technology driven world. As Steve Jobs very nicely put it - “It’s technology married with the liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our hearts sing.” One of the striking features about liberal arts education is that it equips students with critical thinking skills and the flexibility to constantly modify and learn new things.

Moreover, streams such as history, philosophy and ethics can serve as critical firewalls to ensure innovations serve for the greater good. Liberal art Institutions are increasingly offering diverse curricula. Williams College a well reputed liberal arts institute, for instance offers Science, Technology and Human Values as one of its courses.

Students have different pathways to acquire liberal arts education. Based on their preferences, they can either attend a liberal arts school or enroll into a program in university that focuses on liberal arts. For instance, college aspirants who want to go undecided to the US can seriously consider a liberal arts college as they have two years to decide on their major unlike one year, were they to go to any other US university.

Being Future Ready

The purpose of going to university is more than academic achievements and being trained to be job ready. It is a place to acquire knowledge and skills that will make a human unique. As the professional world gets increasingly digitised, students will need to equip themselves with skills that artificial intelligence cannot imitate. What will set these students apart is not what they know, but how they can learn to learn in this fluid world.