“The Liberal Studies program truly allows you to explore your interest and take electives to further it.” - Jackson Liu, NYU Freshman While most of us at NYU Shanghai are aware of the fact that our college is a “liberal arts” university, we do not often stop to truly understand what that word means or how it applies to our parent school in New York. NYU is not a liberal arts university - it is a private research university that is comprised of colleges and schools, some of which are liberal arts and some of which are not. A liberal arts college is one that typically requires students to take courses in a multitude of disciplines other than their major, such as the sciences, social sciences, and the arts. Liberal studies, on the other hand, is usually an interdisciplinary major that typically requires students to take different liberal arts subjects; a liberal studies degree can be a two-year course where the student transitions to a liberal arts college at the end of the second year, or it can be a four-year course that offers a Liberal Studies major. Following these definitions, there are several colleges in NYU that follow a liberal arts curriculum, such as the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), the Gallatin School of Individualized Study (Gallatin), and Tisch School of the Arts (Tisch). To find out more about the Liberal Studies department in New York and how it differs from other regular programs at NYU, OCA got a chance to talk to NYU NY freshman, Jackson Liu who is a student of the Liberal Studies department studying abroad for his freshman year at Shanghai. Liberal Studies is a department at NYU that comprises of two programs, the Liberal Studies Core Program (LSP) and the Global Liberal Studies Program (GLS). LSP is a two year liberal arts program, at the end of which students can transition into a college within NYU that also follows a liberal arts curriculum. According to Jackson, who is a GLS student, LSP is a program that simply prepares you for other majors, and CAS acts as the default school that most students end up transitioning to at the end of their second year because has a flexible liberal arts curriculum. That said, some students also transition into other NYU schools like Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development (Steinhardt) and Gallatin, with some even enrolling into colleges that are more major-specific and harder to get into such as Tisch. The transition into an NYU college is made easier by the fact that LSP’s 2-year academic requirements fulfill the liberal arts requirements of all undergraduate programs at NYU, hence students do not have to worry about being put at a disadvantage in terms of foundation courses. What does make LSP’s requirements different from the liberal arts colleges’ requirements is that LSP’s classes are seminar-style and are a lot smaller, resulting in close interaction between professors and students. In fact, one of the most attractive things about the LSP program is the fact that each student gets assigned a faculty member as an academic advisor, hence allowing for individual advisement. GLS, on the other hand, is a 4-year course at the end of which students receive a Bachelor of Arts in Global Liberal Studies. GLS classes focus on liberal arts in the context of a global world, and all GLS students are required to study abroad in their junior year. GLS has six concentrations students can choose from to shape their sophomore and upper level subjects, and within their concentration students must also do their Junior Independent Research Seminar as well as their Senior Thesis. Other than the requirements for their particular concentrations, GLS also has several writing requirements, cultural, and science requirements, fulfilled by courses such as Cultural Foundations I & II, Social Foundations I & II, Global Writing Seminar, and several courses in the natural sciences; the program also has an “Intensive Language Study Requirement” requiring proficiency at least till the intermediate level in the language of their junior year study abroad site. The two Liberal Studies programs also allow for vast study abroad opportunities: students can start the program by studying abroad in their freshman year in Florence, London, Paris or Washington D.C. Similar to NYU Shanghai, GLS students are also required to study abroad in the junior year; however, this requirement can be lifted if the student has previously studied abroad and wants to petition to stay in New York for junior year. Permitted locations for junior year study abroad are Berlin, Buenos Aires, Florence, Madrid, Paris, Shanghai, and Tel Aviv. Jackson believes that locations for freshman year study abroad are a lot more limited because those four particular sites are more established and have a greater amount of resources for freshmen to get used to their majors, other than the fact that they are more humanities-based than other sites in the Global Network. GLS students have a minimum of one year and a maximum of two years of study abroad, with the department recommending junior year abroad so that internships, which are part of the GLS degree requirements, are more globally spread out. This aids students in immersing themselves in an international environment and getting a better understanding of the world. Due to last minute visa issues with NYU Paris, Jackson, unlike most students in the GLS program, spent his entire freshman year at NYU Shanghai even though it is not a site for the freshmen in GLS. In response to OCA’s inquiries on why such an exception was made, we discovered that: Shanghai is already a GLS site for juniors, was an LSP site for freshmen several years ago, and fortunately, did not require Jackson to get a Chinese visa due to his status as a Chinese national. In the past, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the Liberal Studies department and its two programs, due to lack of knowledge about the program and rumors surrounding their admissions process and curriculum. The program has been stigmatized and taunted by several students for its competitiveness, often branded as a program for those who have money but are not good enough for CAS, but things seem to be changing as the department becomes more concrete and well-known, and as students become more aware of the difference between colleges like CAS, that offer a liberal studies curriculum, and programs like the Liberal Studies Department, which offer majors. When asked about his favorite part of the program, Jackson says what he loves about his major and the core program is that it allows for “a lot of space and freedom to take electives. Mores so, if you have done AP or IB in high school, you can place out of the math and science requirements, giving you even greater freedom to choose subjects that interest you. Depending on what you want to take, you can be running around all over the NYU campus.” For more information about the Liberal Studies department and their two programs, you can visit their website: http://liberalstudies.nyu.edu/ OCA would like to thank Jackson Liu for providing the information about the Liberal Studies department and their programs, and wishes him the best of luck for all future endeavors! This article was written by Lathika Chandra Mouli. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: NYU