<p>What kinds of people (academically and in terms of future career plans) would be best off going to an LAC?</p>
<p>Anyone who wants to be educated. They can then go do anything. College should not be Vo-Tech school.</p>
<p>LAC tend to draw people who
-Love Learning about everything
-Don’t know what to specialize in
-Don’t want to specialize in something
-Like a smaller higher education facility in a tight nit community</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, many LACs are strong in only some subject areas, while being weak in others (weakness in math and physics, as evidenced by limited course selection, seems to be pretty common). A student who is undecided may want to check carefully to see whether a school (LAC or otherwise) is sufficient offerings in all of the subjects that s/he might major in, to avoid having to transfer out if s/he decides to major in something that the school is weak in.</p>
<p>The small size of most LACs tends to be a major attractor for some students who may not do as well in a 500 student freshman economics course or something like that.</p>
<p>Speaking of experience or … engaging in idle speculation, ucb?</p>
<p>Students who are looking to learn.</p>
<p>(with the prerequisite that they can afford it and it offers their intended major)</p>
<p>Open-minded students who want to learn for the sake of learning and who aren’t necessarily going to school to be on track for a specific career path.</p>
<p>No idle speculation needed when you can just look at course catalogs and see the shortage of courses in some subjects. (It sure seems strange when a student starting a thread indicating that s/he wants to major in some science gets a reply with a recommendation for Sarah Lawrence College.)</p>
<p>
What a LAC has:</p>
<p>(1) Small size - Most LACs range in size from a few hundred to 3000 students. Public LACs are often larger than private ones, but they almost never exceed 5000 students. Although universities can also be very small (Caltech and Brandeis), they tend to be a bit bigger.</p>
<p>(2) Broad offerings in the liberal arts - The liberal arts consist of the humanities (English, philosophy, classics, religion, art history), social sciences (economics, history, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, psychology, political science), sciences (biology, geology, chemistry, physics, computer science), math (math, statistics), and the arts (theatre, dance, visual arts, music). </p>
<p>What a LAC typically does not have:</p>
<p>(1) Graduate degrees - A few LACs grant PhDs (Wesleyan and Bryn Mawr), some have law schools (Washington & Lee and Lewis & Clark), and some have other graduate schools like education (Willamette). In general, however, most LACs grant only BA/BS degrees. This is contrast to universities, which also house graduate schools of medicine, law, dentistry, business, divinity, etc. </p>
<p>(2) Pre-professional programs - Some LACs have majors in business (Skidmore), engineering (Bucknell), communications (Susquehanna), nursing (Hiram), etc. In general, however, most LACs focus on the liberal arts. </p>
<p>(3) More focus on the liberal arts than a college of arts & sciences at a university. While a university often offers pre-professional programs like nursing and engineering, it also has a college of arts & sciences that has the exact same array of programs as a LAC. In fact, most rare departments are found at universities (e.g. Inner Asian studies, Near Eastern studies, Celtic studies, etc.). </p>
<p>(4) More requirements than a university. There are LACs and universities with core curriculums (Columbia and Reed), LACs and universities with distribution requirements (Penn and Bowdoin), and LACs and universities with no requirements (Brown and Amherst).</p>
<p>
For that matter, there are few universities strong across the board. Sarah Lawrence is a straw man argument. Where are the departments of classics, philosophy, and religion at Georgia Tech? Why can’t I major in earth science at Emory, geography at Yale, or theatre at Hopkins? Should a student avoid Harvard for fear he might spontaneously develop an interest in agriculture or kinesiology? </p>
<p>You place such emphasis on high school students knowing their major, but that seems unreasonable to anyone who’s familiar with college students. According to [Ohio</a> U](<a href=“http://www.ohio.edu/advising/faqs.cfm]Ohio”>http://www.ohio.edu/advising/faqs.cfm), for example:
[ul][<em>]1/3 of students come in undecided
[</em>]Students change their majors an average of 3 times[/ul]</p>
<p>How many students transfer for academic reasons? I suspect they are rather few and far between. Most degrees are flexible enough to allow students to do quite a lot, especially with ingenuity and further education. Off the top of my head, I can think of an archaeologist who now works in genetic engineering, a linguist who works as a film producer, and a marine biologist who became a celebrated writer. After all, most students don’t end up in their fields. Few history majors actually want to become historians, and few anthropology majors become anthropologists. Even at the so-called “PhD factories” like Caltech and Reed, students who go on to earn a PhD are in a distinct minority. </p>
<p>What’s most important for the vast majority of students is getting a solid, well-rounded education and learning how to engage with a task or text and think critically. A LAC does this perfectly well – in addition to offering a lack of iffy TAs and absurd amounts of red tape.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No one suggests Georgia Tech or Harvey Mudd for a student interested in classics, philosophy, religion, or other humanities subjects. But when students interested in science ask, it is pretty common for responders to suggest SLC and other colleges which are limited in science. Why is that?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Incorrect. What I usually suggest is that students consider what they might major in. I.e. they may be undecided now, but they may have a general idea of what are possibilities and what are not.</p>
<p>OP asked if a certain kind of person would do better at a LAC. I think the answer is yes: Happy LAC students have different educational and social priorities than those who opt for large schools. (I’m assuming here that these are financially equal choices, which they often aren’t).</p>
<p>I think LAC students value a tight cohesive community more highly than having greater variety, novelty and diversity in their community. They don’t mind having fewer choices when it comes to classes or majors or research projects or ECs– if what they get instead are closer relationships with the faculty, smaller classes, and a more cohesive student culture. They value participation (their own) over being spectators where others, who may be more skilled, are in the lead roles. They value being known and recognized by their peers and teachers, over being able to vanish into a crowd.</p>
<p>This isn’t to say that LAC students don’t value diversity, can’t appreciate a really professional performance, and don’t care what class they take as long as it’s small – it’s just when forced to choose between two competing values, they place a higher value on certain things. One is not better than the other for most professional choices: It’s really about what environment brings out the best in you as a student and as a person.
I have one kid at a LAC and another at a large research university. Neither would trade places with the other because they are in the right places for who they are and what they need.</p>
<p>hipsters tend to do very well at LACs</p>
<p>Probably people who’ve always been family or small-town/school people, who enjoy that sort of tight-knit social cohesion and support. (Not people who necessarily live in a small town, if they don’t like it, but those who do like it or those who wish they did.) I like my family, but I wanted a university for the same reasons I was looking forward to not living in their house any more. I’d guess that jumping into a supportive college would be an easier and happier thing for people who are afraid of being homesick than those who are less ambivalent about leaving home.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That straw is all wet, UCB. Part of the mentoring process that is part and parcel of the LAC teaching model is that majors are gradually steered toward what their professors are interested in. There may not be a lot of breadth; a lot of the professors were chosen to teach where they are because of how their research dove-tailed with other senior faculty. But, the purpose of a liberal arts education isn’t to understand every niche of every academic discipline that exists anywhere in the world. Even a big research university wouldn’t promise that. Rather, the purpose is to acquire the tools to “learn how to learn” about any academic niche out there. And, you can do that in a small department just as well as with a large department. </p>
<p>Furthermore, assuming that person is fulfilling the liberal arts ideal, by spreading their course work outside the science division, that leaves room for about seven or eight courses that are truly elective in nature, over the space of about two and half years. I don’t care how big your science department is, no one is going to be able to take every course listed in the catalogue, and with the person who entered freshman year, truly naive as to their probable major, it is even less likely.</p>
<p>I always wonder what the value is of these sorts of opinions. One person says people go to LACs for individual attention which means they can’t hack it or likely to get homesick to a big school supporter. Obviously, small size has something to do with the attraction but whether it’s to ease “homesickness” or avoid “impersonal classes” at a university depends on the individual. There are plenty of people who do very well in the math and sciences at LACs just as there are those who have developed strong relationships with faculty at large universities.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Huh? If a liberal arts education is supposed to include a breadth of education across various subject areas, should it be narrow within the subject area that one majors in? Someone majoring in a subject would not necessarily study in extreme depth in any niche area of the subject (that is often the purpose of graduate study), but is generally expected to have some (college junior and senior level) study in what that subject considers is foundational subareas.</p>
<p>Regarding the SLC example, note that SLC has no junior and senior level chemistry and physics courses in its course catalog, and very few in biology, so it would not be an appropriate choice for someone interested in in-depth study of science. SLC is a fine school for visual and performing arts, and some humanities areas, but rather limiting in other subjects. Analogously, Harvey Mudd is strong in STEM, but other subjects exist just for breadth purposes.</p>
<p>LACs are great for some students, but the small size means that students should be especially careful about selecting them for good academic and non-academic fit.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Any LAC worth its salt would answer, “Why not?” to that. Liberal arts is not synonymous with superficial or amateurish. It’s a combination of breadth <em>with</em> depth, often with Honors theses, original research or a capstone experience that involves some fairly narrow research. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t think you understand how a liberal arts degree works; departments have different levels of course work, ranging from the “foundational” to the the advanced. Typically, a major would have to include some advanced course work before receiving their degree. In the sciences, especially, you can get into some pretty narrow sub-specialties. A bigger research university might have a proliferation of sub-specialties to which someone with the right aptitude might be attracted, but, in each case, the amount of specialization required to graduate is the same for Yale as it is for Wesleyan.</p>
<p>“What kinds of people (academically and in terms of future career plans) would be best off going to an LAC?”</p>
<p>Generally, if you want business or engineering, choose the Big U. Conversely, if you want a higher percentage of peers headed to grad school, LACs are often considered to be grad school prep colleges. Beyond that, it’s more personal preference, well covered here already.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Since you keep mentioning Harvey Mudd, may I ask you to describe how different the education of a student who seeks the same depth and breadth of education would be different at Harvey Mudd, Stanford, Cal, UCLA, or Caltech. How does the available curriculum at Harvey Mudd and the other schools in the consortium compare to what might be available to UNDERGRADUATES at Caltech? At Stanford? at Cal or UCLA?</p>