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45-533: In university, a Russian studies major includes many cultural classes teaching Russian politics, history, geography , linguistics, Russian language , literature, and arts. Mysticism and folklore are commonly studied, the introduction of Christianity , rule under the tsars and expansion of Russian empire , later rule under communism, history of the Soviet Union , and its collapse and studies about present-day Russia. Russian studies rose in prominence during

90-425: A minor field, a secondary discipline in which they also take a substantial number of classes, but not so many as would be necessary to complete a major. The roots of the academic major as we now know it first surfaced in the 19th century as "alternative components of the undergraduate degree". Before that, all students receiving an undergraduate degree would be required to study the same slate of courses geared at

135-662: A comprehensive " liberal education ". In 1825, the University of Virginia initiated an educational approach that would allow students to choose from an area of focus. Offering eight options (which included ancient languages, anatomy, medicine), other higher educational systems in Europe began to develop into a stricter specialization approach to studies after the American Civil War. In the United States, in

180-442: A greater freedom to explore intellectual curiosities. The 1930s witnessed the appearance of first interdisciplinary major: American studies . Culture was the grounding concept and orchestrating principle for its courses. 1960s to 1970s experienced a new tide of interdisciplinary majors and a relaxation of curriculum and graduation requirements. ( Civil Rights Movement spawned Women's studies and Black Studies , for example.) In

225-407: A lack of emphasis on liberal values. The disappearance of liberal education can also be traced to Liberal Art Colleges. Students are beginning to view higher education as a preparation for careers. This has then led to the natural selection of colleges. The thought of having education that instructs to enhance the individual for the purpose of improving society does not meet current demands. Thus, as

270-467: A liberal arts education does not necessarily include a liberal education, and a liberal arts program may even be as specialized as a vocational program. For practical purposes, liberal education is not actually differentiated from liberal arts education today, except by scholars. Unlike a professional and vocational education that prepares students for their careers, a liberal education prepares students to utilize their leisure time. Such an education helps

315-503: A liberal education curriculum to its undergraduate students, followed by other institutions throughout the country. In Hong Kong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong has implemented a collegiate system since the establishment of the university in 1960s and since then, it has been known for its emphasis in general education in greater China. Some of the universities in India have started offering Liberal Arts Education. Ahmedabad University

360-431: A liberal education may be broad, generalized, and sometimes even contradictory. "It is at once the most enduring and changeable of academic traditions." Axelrod, Anisef, and Lin suggest that conceptions of liberal education are rooted in the teaching methods of Ancient Greece , a slave-owning community divided between slaves and freemen. The freemen, mostly concerned about their rights and obligations as citizens, received

405-457: A liberal education would foster critical thinking and analytical skills that allow the student to adapt to a rapidly changing workforce. The movement towards career-oriented courses within a liberal education has begun at places like Dartmouth College , where a journalism course combines lessons on writing style with reading and analyzing historical journalism. An American survey of CEOs published in 1997 revealed that employers were more focused on

450-420: A minor or minor field refers to their secondary focus. For example, a doctoral student studying history might pursue their degree in history with a major field in war and society and a minor field in postcolonial studies. An impacted major is a major for which more students apply for than the school can accommodate, a classic example of demand exceeding supply. When that occurs, the major becomes "impacted" and so

495-423: A non-specialized, non-vocational, liberal arts education that produced well-rounded citizens aware of their place in society. At the same time, Socrates emphasized the importance of individualism , impressing upon his students the duty of man to form his own opinions through reason rather than indoctrination. Athenian education also provided a balance between developing the mind and the body. Another possibility

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540-464: A result, Liberal Art Colleges are diminishing along with the emphasis on providing a liberal education. Chinese universities began to implement liberal curricula between the 1920s and 1940s, but shifted to specialized education upon the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Higher education reform in the 1990s returned to liberal education. In 2000 Peking University started to offer

585-429: A similar function to an academic minor at other universities, that is an academic discipline outside of the student's academic major in which they take a number of classes. At Brown University and Harvard University , however, the term "concentration" refers simply to the major field. At the doctoral studies level, an academic major or major field refers to a student's primary focus within their degree program while

630-564: A stronger sense of values, ethics, and civic engagement ... characterized by challenging encounters with important issues, and more a way of studying than a specific course or field of study" by the Association of American Colleges and Universities . Usually global and pluralistic in scope, it can include a general education curriculum which provides broad exposure to multiple disciplines and learning strategies in addition to in-depth study in at least one academic area. Liberal education

675-470: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about Russian culture is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Academic major An academic major is the academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits. A student who successfully completes all courses required for the major qualifies for an undergraduate degree . The word major (also called concentration , particularly at private colleges)

720-546: Is a Western movement, it has been influential in other regions as well. For example, in Japan during the general liberalism of the Taishō period , there was a liberal education movement that saw the establishment of a number of schools based on liberal education in the 1920s – see 大正自由教育運動 . Liberal education and professional education have often been seen as divergent. German universities moved towards more professional teaching in

765-517: Is also sometimes used administratively to refer to the academic discipline pursued by a graduate student or postgraduate student in a master's or doctoral program. An academic major typically involves completion of a combination of required and elective courses in the chosen discipline. The latitude a student has in choosing courses varies from program to program. An academic major is administered by select faculty in an academic department . A major administered by more than one academic department

810-442: Is called an interdisciplinary major . In some settings, students may be permitted to design their own major, subject to faculty approval. In the United States, students are usually not required to choose their major discipline when first enrolling as an undergraduate. In addition, most colleges and universities require that all students take a general core curriculum in the liberal arts . Normally students are required to commit by

855-988: Is inhibited due to parochial opposition to new sub-specialties and research methods." In many universities, an academic concentration is a focus within a specific academic major, that is a field of study within a specific academic major. For example, interdisciplinary programs in humanities or social sciences will require a student to pick a specific academic concentration as a focus within their academic major, such as an academic major in Interdisciplinary Humanities with an academic concentration in Film or an academic major in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences with an academic concentration in Geography. At several art schools and liberal arts colleges , an academic concentration serves

900-415: Is susceptible to higher standards of admission. For example, suppose that a school has minimum requirements are SATs of 1100 and a GPA of 3.0. If a person applies to an impacted major, the school can raise the minimum requirements as much as needed to weed out the students that it is unable to accommodate. Because of this, some students may opt to apply to a school as "Undeclared". If in the above example

945-505: Is that liberal education dates back to the Zhou dynasty , where the teachings of Confucianism focused on propriety, morality, and social order. Hoerner also suggests that Jesus was a liberal educator, as "he was talking of a free man capable of thinking for himself and of being a responsible citizen," but liberal education is still commonly traced back to the Greeks. While liberal education

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990-525: The Classics and humanities slowly returned in the fourteenth century, which led to increased study of both Ancient Greek and Latin . In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, liberal education focused mostly on the classics. Commoners, however, were not too keen on studying the classics, so they instead took up vernacular languages and literature, and also the sciences. Until at least the twentieth century, both humanist and classicist influences remained in

1035-528: The 1980s and 1990s, " interdisciplinary studies , multiculturalism , feminist pedagogy , and a renewed concern for the coherence and direction of the undergraduate program began to assail the Baccalaureate degree dominated by the academic major." The academic major is considered a defining and dominant characteristic of the undergraduate degree . "The ascendancy of the disciplines in the late nineteenth century and their continuing dominance throughout

1080-818: The Advancement of Science describes a liberal education in this way: "Ideally, a liberal education produces persons who are open-minded and free from provincialism, dogma, preconception, and ideology; conscious of their opinions and judgments; reflective of their actions; and aware of their place in the social and natural worlds." Liberally educated people are skeptical of their own traditions; they are trained to think for themselves rather than conform to higher authorities. It also cultivates "active citizenship" through off-campus community service, internships, research, and study abroad. Some faculty see this movement towards "civic engagement" as more pedagogically powerful than traditional classroom teaching, but opponents argue that

1125-624: The Cold War, but experienced a decline after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Aggressive behavior by Russia, particularly its invasion of Ukraine , led to increased attention to Russian studies and a reevaluation of its precepts in terms of decolonization . In the year 1897, During the last Emperor's reign of Russia, Czar Nikolai II implemented the public school system in Russia that had a population of 125 million people, but only around 26.5 million were literate in reading or writing. After his reign

1170-614: The United States in the mid-20th century, being conspicuous in the movement for general education. Wilfred Griffin Eady , the Principal of the Working Men's College from 1949 to 1955, defined the liberal education his institution sought to provide as "something you can enjoy for its own sake, something which is a personal possession and an inward enrichment, and something which teaches a sense of values". The American Association for

1215-490: The classroom. At the same time, humanistic concepts such as imagination and critical thinking, which cannot be tested by such methods, are disappearing from college curricula. Thirty percent of college graduates in the United States may eventually work in jobs that do not exist yet. Proponents of a liberal education therefore argue that a postsecondary education must prepare students for an increasingly complex labor market. Rather than provide narrowly designed technical courses,

1260-423: The credibility of liberal education which has impacted how students view higher education. The negative impact being a focus on specific disciplinary practices separating it from the original ideology of liberal education as "...a philosophy of education that empowers individuals with broad knowledge and transferable skills, and a stronger sense of values, ethics, and civic engagement ..." Politicians have influenced

1305-425: The education occurring within an academic institution must be purely intellectual and scholarly. A liberal education combines an education in the classics , literature , the humanities , moral virtues, and others. The term liberal education in the modern sense should not be confused with liberal arts education ; the latter deals with academic subjects, while the former deals with ideological subjects. Indeed,

1350-399: The end of their second academic year at latest, and some schools even disallow students from declaring a major until this time. A student who declares two academic majors is said to have a double major . A coordinate major is an ancillary major designed to complement the primary one. A coordinate major requires fewer course credits to complete. Many colleges also allow students to declare

1395-441: The first two years of study. As an emphasis on specialized knowledge grew in the middle of the century, colleges began to adjust the proportion of required general education courses to those required for a particular major. As University of Chicago professor Martha Nussbaum points out, standardized testing has placed more emphasis on honing technical knowledge, and its quantitative, multiple-choice nature prompts rote learning in

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1440-438: The individual navigate internal and external conflicts in life. For example, a liberal education aims to help students be self-conscious and aware of their actions and motivations. Individuals also become more considerate for other beliefs and cultures. According to James Engel, the author of The Value of a Liberal Arts Education , A liberal education provides the framework for an educated and thoughtful citizen . Definitions of

1485-488: The late 1970s—perhaps as a reaction against overspecialization in undergraduate curricula. Currently, pressures from employers, parents and governments have defined the type of education offered at educational institutions. Such trends have curtailed the role of education offered in America. Universities have now provided education for the sole purpose to prepare students for the workforce. This idea has negatively influenced

1530-468: The liberal education, and proponents of a progressive education also embraced the humanist philosophy. Study of the classics continued in the form of the Great Books program. Robert Maynard Hutchins brought this program to the University of Chicago . Upon Hutchins' resignation, the university got rid of the program, but an adapted version still exists at Shimer College . While liberal education

1575-482: The long-term outcomes of education, such as adaptability, than college students and their parents, who were more concerned with the short-term outcomes of getting a job. As of 2009, said only eight percent of colleges provide a liberal education to four percent of students in the United States. Liberal education revived three times in the United States during periods of industrialization and shifts of social preoccupations—before World War I , after World War II , and in

1620-439: The nineteenth century, and unlike American students, who still pursued a liberal education, students elsewhere started to take professional courses in the first or second year of study. In the early twentieth century, American liberal arts colleges still required students to pursue a common curriculum, whereas public universities allowed a student to move on to more pragmatic courses after having taken general education courses for

1665-473: The purpose and nature of the undergraduate major. Generally, proponents of the major and departmental system "argue that they enable an academic community to foster the development, conservation and diffusion of knowledge." In contrast, critics "claim that they promote intellectual tribalism, where specialization receives favor over the mastery of multiple epistemologies , where broader values of liberal learning and of campus unity are lost, and where innovation

1710-424: The school implements requirements of SATs of 1300 and a GPA of 3.4 for the impacted major, a student may find it better to apply as "Undeclared" if they meet only the minimum requirements. However, many universities, such as the University of California, Berkeley , may in turn present more difficult requirements (such as a GPA requirement in certain prerequisite classes) to enter an impacted major even once accepted to

1755-431: The second half of the 19th century, concentrated foci at the undergraduate level began to prosper and popularize, but the familiar term "major" did not appear until 1877 in a Johns Hopkins University catalogue. The major generally required 2 years of study, while the minor required one. From 1880 to 1910, Baccalaureate granting American institutions vastly embraced a free-elective system, where students were endowed with

1800-539: The twentieth century have left an indelible imprint on the shape and direction of the academic major" and research affirms that the academic major is the strongest and clearest curricular link to gains in student learning. While general education is considered to be the breadth component of an undergraduate education, the major is commonly deemed the depth aspect. Choice of major has a significant impact on employment prospects and lifetime earnings. Through its development, scholars, academics, and educators have disagreed on

1845-481: The type of education provided at universities. These politicians have been recently cutting the funds for universities applying immense pressure on higher educational institutions. Lack of funds have caused many to abandon the liberal arts curricula. Therefore, universities have been forced to provide a curriculum useful for providing a vocational education. The lack of funds to maintain a balanced education system has caused American universities to provide an education with

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1890-493: The university overall. Liberal education A liberal education is a system or course of education suitable for the cultivation of a free ( Latin : liber ) human being. It is based on the medieval concept of the liberal arts or, more commonly now, the liberalism of the Age of Enlightenment . It has been described as "a philosophy of education that empowers individuals with broad knowledge and transferable skills, and

1935-493: Was advocated in the 19th century by thinkers such as John Henry Newman , Thomas Huxley , and F. D. Maurice . The decline of liberal education is often attributed to mobilization during the Second World War. The premium and emphasis placed upon mathematics, science, and technical training caused a shift away from a liberal concept of higher education studies; however, it became central to much undergraduate education in

1980-463: Was over, Joseph Stalin took position of leader of the Soviet Union in the 1930s. He emphasized the industrialization of reform and need for engineers and scientists, which have led to Russia now being in the top 5 countries to rank #1 in Physics regional research reputation. The reform of their education system came from being 21.2% literate to 99.69% in 2021. This article relating to education

2025-481: Was stifled during the barbarism of the Early Middle Ages , it rose to prominence once again in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, especially with the re-emergence of Aristotelian philosophy . The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries saw a revolt against narrow spirituality and educators started to focus on the human, rather than God. This humanist approach favored reason, nature and aesthetics. Study of

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