Notes

Subject Code: LIBS
Faculty Coordinator: James Carson, Department of History
Email: jc35@queensu.ca
Overview

Liberal Studies is designed to provide you with an integrated liberal studies education, structured around modes of critical thought, and focused on breadth rather than specialization. The Liberal Studies Minor/General will prepare you for work in the 21st-century, in jobs that may not yet exist but that will require you to have the transferable skills that can be gained through an interdisciplinary approach to intellectual inquiry, argument, and analysis.

Advice to Students

The BA in Liberal Studies will start with a required foundational course, LIBS 100 Origins and Practices of Liberal Arts, which will introduce students to approaches, methodologies, and fundamental questions in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Students will then be required to select courses from each of the four modes of critical thought: scientific inquiry and reasoning, insights into contemporary society and culture, critical perspectives on history, and academic writing. Finally, a required capstone course, LIBS 300 The Liberal Arts in the Contemporary World, will enable students to draw on and synthesize their learning using a collaborative, project-based approach. By fostering an interdisciplinary approach to intellectual inquiry, argument and analysis, the BA in Liberal Studies will prepare students for more in-depth study in a specific field or to enter a professional program such as law, as well as provide them with a strong comprehensive educational foundation and the adaptable skills for any career path or life activity

Programs