Why Study Arts

An Arts education is more concerned with the development of fundamental thinking and learning skills than with training you for a specific career field. The best thing? The foundational skills you learn through an Arts education are applicable to virtually every career field imaginable.

For your personal and career development, the value of your Arts degree is its versatility.

Reading, Writing and Verbal Communication

Much of arts learning is based on understanding and conveying complex ideas and points of view, so arts students tend to develop finely tuned comprehension and communication skills.

Some of these key abilities include:

• effectively tailoring information to different audiences
• the ability to write smoothly, correctly, and with proper sentence structure
• constructing well-supported ideas
• reading critically and understanding inherent implications and biases
• the ability to deliver information and ideas orally
• generating visual aids and presentation materials

Critical Thinking and Analysis

Arts students are trained move beyond the surface and to dig deeply into ideas and concepts. They learn to recognize their own biases and to make sound conclusions based on carefully gathered evidence. As critical thinkers they are able to process abstract and complex ideas, and can examine issues from many different perspectives.

Some of these key abilities include:

• the ability to understand ideas within their context (historical, cultural etc.)
• understanding underlying assumptions
• the ability to evaluate ideas and create solid arguments
• the ability to solve problems using evidence

Research Skills

Performing and understanding research is a hallmark of arts learning. Arts students are trained not only how and where to find information, but also in the ways in which its quality can be evaluated.

Some key research skills include:

• the ability to understand and integrate information from diverse sources
• the ability to survey and understand different 'fields' of knowledge
• extracting important information from sources
• the ability to acknowledge and cite research sources properly
• the ability to document and report on research
• the ability to manage a complex research project

Data Analysis

Arts encompasses learning in areas like statistics, demographics, and field study/research. This type of learning develops skill in data collection and analysis techniques, and the ability to apply them to contemporary issues and problems.

Some key abilities include:

• numeracy (the ability to work competently and effectively with numbers)
• the ability to draw meaning from qualitative and quantitative data;
• interviewing and data collection skills
• the ability to organize and report on data findings

Open Mindedness and Creativity

Because they study some of the most unique aspects of the human experience - culture, literature, philosophy, etc. - and the techniques of independent and critical thought, arts learning specializes in 'big picture' and 'out of the box' thinking. The ability of arts students to create, innovate and problem solve is one of the key features of a liberal arts education.

Some key abilities include:

• the ability to formulate original ideas and hypotheses
• the ability to interpret and create innovative ideas and modes of problem-solving
• the ability to interpret ideas
• cultivation of cross-disciplinary sensibilities
• openness to other modes of thought

Global Citizenship

An arts education is concerned with the human experience - in all regions and in all cultures, and across all periods of time. Through the study of diverse cultural and intellectual traditions, arts students learn that there are many different ways of seeing the world, leading them to become more informed global citizens.

Key abilities include:

• a broad-based and multi-faceted understanding of issues and ideas
• an understanding of how ideas and institutions of the past influence the present
• cross-cultural understanding
• understanding the influence of culture on ideas and institutions
• the ability to incorporate multiple perspectives into one's point of view