<p>I’m most concerned about the academic differences. I know the setting is different, but I want to know what I’m not learning. I hear that a liberal arts education will give me a well rounded education and will teach me how to think. That won’t happen at a state school? By the way, I’m between OSU and a few private schools, and I’ve been extremely disappointed with my education so far. I’m willing to put up with a quiet, boring, religious campus, as well as owing more money, if I know I’m getting a better education.</p>
<p>The most important word in LAC is college: suggesting smaller, undergraduate, learning. Sometimes the environment is helpful to the student, if only to be surrounded by a select group of driven and talented students.
Universities are often large research-oriented institutions. Opportunities are endless. They care for their students and teaching, but some students find bureaucracy and large class sizes unappealing.</p>
<p>Academically, there is very little difference except in the breadth of courses and programs offered. A liberal arts education exists everywhere in the American system of higher education. You will learn many subjects and hopefully will be able to tie them together. Normally this will take up the first 2 years, but some colleges require minors or upper-level electives outside of your major.</p>
<p>OSU provides a decent education. Unless you want to attend a really elite LAC (e.g. Williams, Amherst, Middlebury), I’d doubt you’d find much of a difference between the schools aside from atmosphere. </p>
<p>Also, pretty much every post-secondary school (aside from schools like Olin) has a liberal arts school within its system like ferryboat10 said. OSU has a College of the Arts and Sciences, which is essentially a LAC within a university. In fact, the first thing it says on its website is that an arts and science education “makes us think.” </p>
<p>[.:Colleges</a> of the Arts and Sciences:.](<a href=“http://www.artsandsciences.osu.edu/].:Colleges”>http://www.artsandsciences.osu.edu/)</p>
<p>In your case, I’d make most of your decision based off of other things about the school (e.g. atmosphere, cost, location, etc.)</p>
<p>Liberal arts colleges aren’t the only institutions to provide a liberal arts education. Many universities make a liberal arts education their goal. The only places I can think of where this isn’t the case is for more focused schools, like Caltech perhaps (although I admittedly know almost nothing about the school).</p>
<p>The biggest difference you’d find between OSU and a selective LAC are the students. In general – please note I say in general, obviously there are exceptions – students at selective LACs tend to be a little wealthier and possibly more academically-inclined than at OSU, which tends to attract mostly local students and those who may not have had the stats to go into the flagship u. That said, it is so hard to get academic jobs, that your odds of having very good professors at OSU are close to as good as at an LAC. It could be that the overall discussion sections at OSU may not be as interesting as at an academic LAC, but the instruction itself will likely be very good.</p>
<p>I thought OSU was the flagship University.</p>
<p>Unless we’re talking about Oklahoma State or Oregon State</p>
<p>My midwestern daughter is just learning that when you are in Texas, OSU means Oklahoma State University, which is half the size of Ohio State University.</p>
<p>I think the difference comes down to intimacy. At a small LAC, by the time you’ve been there a couple of years you’ll personally know a very large percentage of the people on campus—students, faculty, and staff–if not by name, then at least by sight. Student/faculty ratios tend to be lower at LACs, class sizes tend to be smaller on average, there are probably fewer lecture and more discussion classes, the people in your classes will include many people you’ve had classes with before, share a dorm with, eat dinner with, etc. At a large university there’s a little more anonymity; you’re one of the crowd, the people in your classes aren’t necessarily the people in your residence hall or the same people who are in any extracurricular activities you get involved in, and so on. Not to say you won’t form friendships; you will, but you’ll have clusters of friends and acquaintances, and most of the people on campus will be strangers to you; more like living in a bigger city rather than the small village-like intimacy of a small LAC. </p>
<p>The faculties are also much smaller at LACs, which has pluses and minuses from an academic perspective. On the plus side, it means you’re more likely to take multiple courses from the same faculty members in your major field, which means they’ll get to know you better and you’ll get to know them better. On the minus side—well, it means you’re likely to take multiple courses from the same faculty members in your major field, so you’re exposed to somewhat less breadth of perspectives and methodologies, and if you don’t hit it off with the key people in your department, you may feel a little stuck. LACs also tend to offer fewer courses in each field, and fewer fields of study.</p>
<p>Some people swear by the intimacy, personal attention, and emphasis on undergraduate education that LACs offer. Others feel stifled and intellectually limited by it; if you get it into your head to study Hindi or linguistics, it may not really be possible within the limited curriculum that the LAC offers (a few offer linguistics, but only a very few; I don’t know of any that offer Hindi).</p>
<p>As for a “well rounded education and learning how to think,” I think the difference is this: at a good LAC, both those things will happen of necessity. You’ll get a well rounded education because it’s required, and because there’s really no alternative; there just aren’t enough courses in any given field to take up all of your time, so you’ll have some breadth out of necessity. Similarly on “learning how to think,” there’s just no place to hide: you’ll be in small, intimate classes with really smart students and stimulating professors who will really challenge you and push you to consider things from new perspective, and armed with new information. I think it’s probably easier to slack off in a big university; to take the easiest courses, to take a lot of big lecture courses where you can remain anonymous if you so choose, to not push yourself academically and intellectually. Some people do that. But there are also opportunities at big universities to search out the best and most interesting and most challenging professors and courses of study, to go as broad in your studies as you would at an LAC (and broader if you want, because of the breadth of offerings), and in many fields to go deeper than you can at an LAC, where course offerings in many fields are often quite limited (though of course there may be independent study, study abroad, or exchange programs with other school to make up for some of it). But the onus is on you at the big university; if you’re self-motivated and self-directed, you can thrive there, but no one will be holding your hand through the process.</p>
<p>This westerner automatically assumed OSU was Oregon State…</p>
<p>^Would it still be confusing if it were *The[/] OSU? And am I the only one who finds that to be slightly haughty/pretentious?</p>
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<p>If you enroll in the College of Arts and Science and/or an honors program, I think you would be getting about the same education.</p>
<p>^ LOL as a Midwesterner I assumed OSU was Ohio State. That shows you what kinds of regional bias we all have, no? ;)</p>
<p>I don’t know about bias – it’s a big country with a lot of fly-over space that’s all. No bias at all ;)</p>
<p>Any college/university is what the individual student makes of it, but in general you will be expected to work harder at a good LAC than at a big university. But as that is the common ethic at LACs, you probably won’t regret it, because everyone will be in the same boat. It tends to supercharge the intellectual atmosphere to a greater degree than you will find at a big university (especially at a big public).</p>
<p>Vassar offers Hindi, I believe. But it’s an exception to the LACs-don’t-offer-obscure-languages rule.</p>
<p>An honors program at a university will offer approximately the same education, but the social environment outside of class will be very different.</p>
<p>As a parent who started at a top 10 LAC and finished undergrad at a state flagship, I have a couple of observations.</p>
<p>A top LAC will teach you how to learn; a flagship may achieve the same task, but it requires more dedication from you, due to larger classes, a healthy mix of folks interested only in grades, varying focuses, etc. At my LAC, virtually all were obsessed with learning (not grades, because virtually all received less than stellar grades). Call it peer pressure or effective admission strategy, but no one seemed to mind the tremendous time commitment coupled with the less-than-stellar grades.</p>
<p>At my flagship, grades came easily, but finding “fellow travellers” (devoted academics) was more difficult. As a philosophy major, I found more devoted students within my major at my flagship than I did outside my major (except for my wife, who holds a graduate degree from Harvard).</p>
<p>As to results? No conclusion. Anecdotally, of my four LAC roommates, three hold graduate degrees from MIT, Stanford and Northwestern, respectively, and one is a teacher. My two closest acquaintances from the philosophy department at my flagship hold graduate degrees from Yale and Harvard, respectively.</p>
<p>As a freshman and sophomore, I believe I got a better education at my LAC than I would have at my flagship. As a junior and senior, my obsession with academics (generated by my experience at my LAC) was certainly addressed by my flagship, and would have similarly been addressed by my LAC had I stayed.</p>
<p>If you’re worried about course breadth, you could always apply to an LAC or a uni that was involved in a consortium with other colleges. The only ones I know of are involved with the colleges that I applied to/attend: Mt. Holyoke, Smith, U Mass Amherst, Amherst, and Hampshire College form the Five College Consortium. There is also another consortium that I know of, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore, U. Penn. Students at those colleges can cross register at each other’s colleges, giving them 6,000 courses and 5,000 courses (respectively) to choose from. Sometimes colleges share departments. I wouldn’t be surprised also if you could major at other colleges in the Amherst consortium, as you can do that in the BMC/HC/SC/U.Penn consortium, even if your major is already offered at your home campus.</p>
<p>As to directly answering this question: I think that one of the biggest differences is the level of extra curriculars you can get involved in, or at least the ease. I go to a small LAC and I find it unbelievably easy to get involved in clubs, and have already held/will hold leadership positions (ones that I was genuinely interested in mind you; not just something to take on my resume). I’m currently involved in about 4 ECs. My friends at other big state universities do not seem to be quite so involved, but that could just be my friends.</p>
<p>Secondly, I don’t think I would do as well at a uni because my learning style is to be engaged and in discussion; lecture classes in HS were a killer for me, and we only had 30 students. So imagine 200? No thanks.</p>
<p>What’s the religious campus you’re considering? If it’s got anything like the atmosphere of Bob Jones U or Pensacola, run far far away.</p>
<p>^ There is also the Claremont consortium in CA.</p>
<p>^ Vassar offers course credit for self-instruction in Hindi and several other less commonly taught languages. Not quite the same thing as a full course in the language. </p>
<p>But thanks, that’s helpful. I’m particularly interested in this because my D, a rising HS junior, is drawn to the intimate environment of LACs but she’s also a bit of a language freak. In addition to French, Latin, and some ancient Greek, she’s starting college-level Portuguese this year, will have had two years of it by the time she enrolls in college, and would like to continue. She’s also interested in eventually adding Hindi. Despite being two of the most widely spoken languages in the world, Portuguese and Hindi are offered only at a few schools, most of them major research universities. Our best idea so far: get accepted at one of the LACs in the “Quaker consortium” (Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, Haverford) and continue language studies at Penn. Other possibilities: Barnard-Columbia (Portuguese and Hindi); Five College Consortium (Portuguese and Hindi); Brown (not an LAC but a smaller research university with LAC-like atmosphere, offering both Portuguese and Hindi); Middlebury (Portuguese, no Hindi);</p>
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I agree with the sentiments expressed in post #9; it is really well written and lays out some of the key differences between a LAC and larger U.</p>
<p>However I do want to point out a disagreement with the paragraph quoted above. If your interest happens to lie in a popular major at a large U you may never be able get small classes with lively discussions and interaction with challenging profs, no matter how motivated you are, because they simply won’t exist in your major. Take for example the following quote from an internal review of the program at a well-respected college (UCLA) in one of the most popular majors on campus (econ)
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