Exploring Beyond Her Major
Meredith believes a liberal arts education at Earlham provides the freedom to choose one's own academic adventures and doesn't pigeonhole one into a Pre-Med track.
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The term “liberal education” is conventionally taken to mean a philosophy of education that empowers individuals, liberates the mind from ignorance, and cultivates social responsibility. Liberal education is characterized by challenging encounters with important issues, and is more a way of studying than specific content.
As a liberal arts college, we facilitate close interaction between faculty and students, while grounding our curricula in the liberal arts disciplines: the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
- Knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural world, through study in the sciences and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages and the arts.
- Intellectual and practical skills, including inquiry and analysis, critical and creative thinking, written and oral communication, quantitative literacy, information literacy, and teamwork and problem solving.
- Personal and social responsibility, including civic knowledge and engagement–local and global, intercultural knowledge and competence, ethical reasoning and action, and foundations and skills for lifelong learning.
- Integrative learning, including synthesis and advanced accomplishment across general and specialized studies.
- Experiential learning, including integration of the academic world and the external world, application of skills to practical challenges, reflection on practical experiences.
Outcomes of a liberal arts education at Earlham:
- skills at collecting and interpreting information and formulating judgments;
- experience and confidence when confronting diverse viewpoints;
- strong written and verbal communication skills;
- excellent leadership potential;
- sensitivity to issues of values, justice and peace; and
- engagement with social responsibility and global citizenship.