Affordable colleges for international students

collegemom3717
Wed, 29 Nov 2017 04:56:49 +0000

Why do you think that LACs won’t work for bio or biochemistry? “Liberal Arts Colleges” does not mean ‘arts’, as in humanities only.

As @al2simon pointed out:

Chemistry is a liberal art. So are math, biochemistry, physics, biology … even computer science (in my opinion).

Classically, there were seven “liberal arts”. They were Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric (the three of which made up the Trivium) and Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy (the four of which made up the Quadrivium). Undergraduates first studied the simpler Trivium, from which our word “trivial” is in part derived.

Math and science are foundational components of a liberal arts education, and studying them lies just as much within the liberal arts tradition as studying literature.

That tradition is why most LACs and universities in the US have ‘Distribution Requirements’, aka ‘General Education’ or GenEds: you have to at least dip your toes into each of the main areas of the ‘liberal arts’ in order to graduate (even at MIT, you have to take some humanities classes). In the US the primary (rough) distinction between a ‘university’ and an LAC is that LACs offer few (if any) post-graduate degrees (size is the other).

Many science students prefer LACs b/c, w/out grad students, the professors need undergrads to do research in their labs (and there are some surprisingly whizzy labs at many LACs). Most like the emphasis on teaching undergraduates in (comparatively) smaller classes, which can make the learning experience richer. The academic standards at a selective LAC will be just as high as at a selective university, and LAC grads from selective colleges tend to do very well in grad school placements (random example: Collegekid #2 majored in Physics at an LAC and is now in a top-10 PhD program).

To be fair, an LAC won’t have the sheer volume of options a larger university will have, and it is worth checking on the offerings at the specific LACs that you are interested in, but all of them will have enough options to prepare you for the next level.