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The Liberal Studies Program
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Our Mission
THE LIBERAL STUDIES PROGRAM: Vision and Identity The Liberal Studies Program provides the ethos of a small liberal arts college while giving students access to the range and depth of resources at one of the world's leading metropolitan research universities. Liberal Studies offers two programs: a two-year program that provides students with a foundation for further study at the other NYU undergraduate schools, and a four-year program leading to the Global Liberal Studies Bachelor of Arts degree. Both programs share a core curriculum, a rigorous two-year course of study in the global liberal arts in a small class setting that facilitates students' participation. Liberal Studies has three unique international freshman programs as well as an array of other international study opportunities.
Liberal Studies fosters close collaboration between faculty and students in and out of the classroom, and all students are advised by faculty and professional advisors from the beginning of their studies. Liberal Studies faculty are distinguished scholars, artists, and professionals who have made a profound commitment to undergraduate teaching. Faculty design classes that combine ideas, materials and methodologies from multiple fields of inquiry, encouraging conversations across the disciplines through discussion and through intensive writing embedded in all classes.
Liberal Studies’ small classes and individual attention place students in the forefront of the learning experience. Working closely with faculty, students study the original works of philosophers, scientists, social scientists, historians, musicians, artists, writers and other thinkers from around the world. The integrated, interdisciplinary curriculum emphasizes direct engagement with the great works and ideas of the past in relation to the challenges of the contemporary world. Liberal Studies is a leader in the use of instructional technology to support the goals of liberal education.
In the first- and second-year core classes, all Liberal Studies students read the foundational works of many cultures in their material and intellectual contexts, and they begin to make critical and imaginative connections that foster independent intellectual inquiry. Students in the GLS B.A. are prepared by their sophomore courses for integrating the experiences of their junior year of study at an international site into their developing sense of how the global and the local connect and intersect. In the junior year, students immerse themselves in the life and language of one of the NYU's global sites through focused course offerings, language study, and experiential learning. At each site, students draw upon cultural resources that transform their chosen city into a learning laboratory.
Throughout the junior and senior years, faculty and staff mentor students as writers and scholars as they engage in extended study and independent projects. The senior thesis draws upon all the student has accomplished, capping the degree with a fully realized individual statement on a topic that relates the student's international experience and interests to the wider web of global connections traced over the four years in Liberal Studies. Students complete Liberal Studies with a richer understanding of the world and possessing the tools to contribute to its future.
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