Associate's
Bachelor's
Masters's
Degree Fields
Business
One of the most versatile degrees available, your business degree will open doors to nearly every industry.
Criminal Justice & Law
Join the movement to keep the streets of your community safe with a major in criminal justice.
Design
Creative minds will find practical and enriching outlets for their artistic passions in this field.
Education
Enrich and inspire others, from young children to adults, and share your passions in the classroom.
Engineering
Engineering is for those who enjoy solving problems and building the technology of tomorrow.
Health
One of the fastest growing industries today, health care is home to some of the most prosperous and in-demand jobs.
Liberal Arts
Expand your knowledge, become more culturally aware, and enrich your life with an education in liberal arts.
Math
Moving beyond simple equations, mathematics is for those who love to solve complex numerical puzzles.
Science
Fight disease and develop solutions to social, environmental, and medical issues in the science field.
Technology
Make science fiction come to life with a degree in technology, where you will be pushing computers into the future.
Online Degree Programs in Liberal Arts
Popular Majors in Liberal Arts
Students interested in liberal arts will study a broad range of topics, regardless of the major they choose, but it is always best for a student to choose a major in their area of greatest interest. There are a variety of majors to choose from under the umbrella of liberal arts, including the following: political science, English, anthropology, communications, history, languages/linguistics and sociology, according to the College Board. Others include philosophy, psychology and economics.
The most popular of these options are in the realm of social science and history, according to the most recent information gathered by the National Center for Education Statistics. 164,000 bachelor’s degrees in history and the social sciences were conferred to students across the nation in 2006-07, making degrees in these majors second only to business majors at the bachelor’s level.
History majors take courses in U.S. and world history from varying time periods and regions, including African, Asian and Latin American histories, and ancient and medieval European history.
Like history majors, social science majors take history courses, but will also take other courses like criminal justice, economics, geography and sociology, with the purpose being to give students multicultural understanding and global perspectives.
How a Degree in Liberal Arts Prepares You for the Real World
While having a degree is vital to expanding your job opportunities, many employers care a lot less about the type of degree you have than they do about your communication skills and ability to work as a team with your fellow employees. These skills are developed to their fullest extent in a liberal arts degree program. Liberal arts majors are equipped to communicate effectively verbally and in writing and learn teambuilding by doing group projects. Those in-depth papers you wrote for your philosophy classes and what you learned from the red proofreaders marks that coated your English papers may have been just the preparation you needed to write proposals, monthly reports and other communications materials in a real-world career. And remember: Nothing kills your chances of getting a job more quickly than spelling and grammar issues on your resumes and cover letters.
Liberal arts degree programs also typically require students to familiarize themselves with a foreign language. Many careers today are seeking bilingual employees to meet the needs of their customers and clients, so by learning the conversational basics of another language, you can give yourself a leg up for your future career.
Best Jobs for Liberal Arts Degree Students
It’s nearly impossible to keep tabs on the number of occupations students can enter just out of college after earning a liberal arts degree because a the student’s comprehensive education lays the groundwork for a number of careers. However, the most common occupations for liberal arts degree-holders are management training, sales, design/graphic arts, teaching and social work, according to information gathered by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Sales/marketing jobs are often the best fit for someone with a liberal arts degree because graduates typically have more highly-developed interpersonal and communications skills. As an added bonus, these types of jobs have an abundance of openings for entry-level positions.
But the options don’t end there. A liberal arts degree in communication could land you an entry-level job at a community newspaper or in public relations, marketing or human research management. English majors could land jobs in copy editing, publishing or teaching.
