The Bi-College News

Liberal Arts for Science Majors

By Anna Giarratana

Recently, people have asked me why I chose to attend a liberal arts college. A liberal arts college may seem like an odd destination for a pre-med science major involved in research. Often questioners wave off my answer, replying with a smile, “Yes, yes, you deal with the liberal arts classes because Bryn Mawr has a good academic reputation.” Or sometimes the questioner is more cynical and replies, “Oh yes, you want the breadth of classes so you don’t have to deal with the depth.” Both of these responses fall so short of the reason any person should chose to attend a liberal arts college. So maybe it’s time we discuss why we all actually chose to do so.
The traditional notion is that a liberal arts college gives students the opportunity to broaden their minds with the study of varied topics. As Albert Einstein said, “It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not really need a college. He can learn them from books. The value of an education at a liberal arts college is not learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.” While Einstein had a valid point, I think a liberal arts education today offers something even more vital to students—freedom.

At Bryn Mawr and Haverford, we enjoy what is possibly our last four years of absolute freedom. We come here with the chance to study whatever strikes our fancy, so to speak. We have to ensure that we take enough classes in one subject to earn a degree, but determining that path is our choice. For me, that ability to choose is the essence of a liberal arts education.

Proponents of liberal arts colleges love to expound upon their advantages. However, sadly, many overlook science as a part of the liberal arts program. For example, the Bryn Mawr divisional requirement of just two natural science courses is lost in a sea of social sciences, languages and humanities. While some people will claim the purpose of a liberal arts college is not to teach facts but rather skills, I don’t necessarily agree. While I agree teaching skills is important, I think a well-rounded education is even more vital. I believe science majors should learn languages to use in the future; take English classes to learn vital communicational skills; and take sociology, anthropology, or history courses to learn more about human cultures. But many of these skills and facts science majors continue to nurture. We read for fun, travel and practice languages, and learn about cultures: it’s human nature. However, after many students take their required natural science classes, they never think about science again. I believe our liberal arts experience fails us in this case.

The ignorance even-well educated people display about science shocks and dismays me. Perhaps this ignorance is due to the fact that even with the increasingly large number of books being published on science, few people want to teach themselves the subject. But just as English, languages, and social sciences are vital to everyday life, so is science. People who tell you differently just don’t understand science. By avoiding the truth about science—biology, physics, chemistry, and others—we are keeping generations of decision makers and world movers in the dark about the very essence of our world. So while we have these four years of freedom at our respective liberal arts institutions, let’s take full advantage of them, learning the science that will broaden our education and inform our worldviews.

Giarratana, a senior chemistry major, can be reached at agiarratan@brynmawr.edu