BA Liberal Arts (with Foundation Year)
About this course
Liberal arts is an approach to higher education that deliberately crosses disciplinary boundaries, drawing on the humanities, social sciences, arts and sometimes sciences to develop a broad, critical and intellectually flexible education. The tradition has deep roots in the history of the university, and it rests on the conviction that some of the most important capabilities for a complex and changing world, including the ability to think across different domains, to engage with uncertainty, to evaluate evidence from multiple perspectives, and to communicate clearly across disciplinary lines, are best developed through breadth rather than narrow specialisation. At the University of Nottingham, this four-year full-time programme, which includes a foundation year, invites you to construct an intellectually coherent education from a wide range of disciplinary offerings. The foundation year provides a structured introduction to university-level study in the arts and humanities, giving you the analytical and academic skills you need before entering the main degree. In the main programme you will study across humanities, arts and social science areas, developing the flexibility to bring different ways of knowing to bear on shared questions. The programme rewards intellectual curiosity and encourages you to make connections between ideas that more specialised programmes would keep separate. Writing, research, critical argument and the ability to engage seriously with difficult and contested questions are developed throughout. Liberal arts programmes are designed to produce graduates who can think, adapt and communicate, rather than simply execute a narrow set of professional skills. Graduates from liberal arts degrees move into a wide range of careers: the civil service, law, journalism, publishing, education, consulting, business, arts administration, the third sector and beyond. The combination of intellectual breadth, critical thinking and strong communication that the degree develops is valued across many professional contexts, and postgraduate study in virtually any field is a well-supported pathway.
Syllabus & Modules
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