Academics in UM

rankinr
Mon, 18 Jun 2012 10:31:20 +0000

annemarijaa:

Ok, so, there’s not a really strong liberal arts program?
So business school would be the better choice? How is the business program? And what about communications school? I heard that you can be in the business school and still take classes in another school, is that right? But thanks so much for your answer!

I think the idea of a strong liberal arts program is incoherent. Generally program strengths are expressed in terms of the strengths of their faculty, but there is no such thing as a liberal arts faculty member, or a PhD in liberal arts, so you can’t measure the the strength of the faculty. The closest thing to doing so, it would seem, is to measure the overall quality of the University and its faculty (which is presumably expressed in our USNews ranking).

IMO, you’re looking at this all wrong. Business, communications, and liberal arts are incredibly different majors. You should pick whichever one will best serve you in a future career that you’ll enjoy, noting that each is likely to lead to widely varying career paths. The only real overlap between all of them is attending law school.