WEBVTT 00:00:02.280 --> 00:00:03.400 If I were to describe Liberal Arts 00:00:03.400 --> 00:00:04.600 to someone who's never heard of it 00:00:04.600 --> 00:00:06.320 before, I would ask them, 00:00:06.320 --> 00:00:08.680 Do you think our world is a complex place? 00:00:08.680 --> 00:00:09.760 Of course it is. 00:00:09.760 --> 00:00:11.400 And Liberal Arts is the answer to that. 00:00:11.400 --> 00:00:12.960 It's about engaging with complexity. 00:00:12.960 --> 00:00:14.680 It's about learning across disciplines, 00:00:14.680 --> 00:00:17.200 having a civic focus and learning in small communities 00:00:17.200 --> 00:00:18.920 to make a positive impact on the world. 00:00:18.920 --> 00:00:22.720 We tackle a lot of different ideas, a lot of different 00:00:22.720 --> 00:00:24.480 concepts, a lot of different theories 00:00:24.480 --> 00:00:26.000 that appear in other disciplines. 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:29.720 So we might take a problem or an issue and look at it 00:00:29.720 --> 00:00:32.920 from a philosophical perspective and a scientific perspective 00:00:32.920 --> 00:00:34.480 and a sociological perspective. 00:00:34.480 --> 00:00:38.160 So it's more about an approach and a process than it is 00:00:38.160 --> 00:00:39.240 about one thing. 00:00:39.240 --> 00:00:41.320 We’ve had people who have gone into banking, 00:00:41.320 --> 00:00:42.840 we've had people who've gone into education, 00:00:42.840 --> 00:00:44.440 we've had people go into further study, 00:00:44.440 --> 00:00:45.800 and this is the common thing 00:00:45.800 --> 00:00:47.560 that our graduates are telling us that 00:00:47.560 --> 00:00:49.600 the people they're working with, what their employers want 00:00:49.600 --> 00:00:53.680 are these critical thinking skills and the ability to come up 00:00:53.680 --> 00:00:55.960 with evidence-based solutions 00:00:55.960 --> 00:00:57.800 to some really difficult problems. 00:00:57.800 --> 00:01:00.680 Liberal Arts is fantastic at bringing together 00:01:00.680 --> 00:01:03.040 lots of your different interests and things 00:01:03.040 --> 00:01:07.160 that you want to study into a much more focussed discipline, 00:01:07.160 --> 00:01:09.440 and really coming out with an end product 00:01:09.440 --> 00:01:10.840 that you can be happy about, 00:01:10.840 --> 00:01:14.600 and an area of focus that you are really passionate about. 00:01:14.600 --> 00:01:16.320 You look at Warwick as a university and say, 00:01:16.320 --> 00:01:18.640 wow, this university has a great economics department, 00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:21.360 they have a centre in Venice, they have all of this, but gosh, 00:01:21.360 --> 00:01:24.360 I've now got to choose between one subject or another. 00:01:24.360 --> 00:01:26.160 With Liberal Arts, you don't have to choose. 00:01:26.160 --> 00:01:27.440 Choose Liberal Arts. 00:01:27.440 --> 00:01:29.120 For us at Warwick, 00:01:29.120 --> 00:01:32.040 it's really about the kind of support that we can give you. 00:01:32.040 --> 00:01:34.880 We work very hard to come up with a curriculum 00:01:34.880 --> 00:01:37.880 that's structured in a way that supports your studies 00:01:37.880 --> 00:01:40.080 so that you have somewhere to go when you're done. 00:01:40.080 --> 00:01:42.480 Whether it's to further study or employment, 00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:45.040 and we really want students to know that we're there for them 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:47.280 and you can always come knock on our door. 00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:51.760 I found that my personal tutors and my module supervisors 00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:55.720 really got to know a sense of what I wanted to study, 00:01:55.720 --> 00:01:58.400 and because of that, the one-to-one support 00:01:58.400 --> 00:02:00.200 and the kind of community 00:02:00.200 --> 00:02:03.680 that Liberal Arts produced was really amazing. 00:02:03.680 --> 00:02:05.400 The key skill, and we've heard this time and again 00:02:05.400 --> 00:02:07.440 from our graduates is that they will get a job, 00:02:07.440 --> 00:02:09.640 they'll go in somewhere, they'll be faced with a problem, 00:02:09.640 --> 00:02:11.600 their colleagues will go, I don't know how to handle this, 00:02:11.600 --> 00:02:13.080 and they'll go, I don't either, 00:02:13.080 --> 00:02:14.880 but I know how to navigate that path, 00:02:14.880 --> 00:02:16.720 which is really just a beautiful thing. 00:02:16.720 --> 00:02:19.080 Our students are great at teamwork 00:02:19.080 --> 00:02:21.760 and we really teach them how to do teamwork. 00:02:21.760 --> 00:02:24.160 We don't just throw them in groups and make them do it. 00:02:24.160 --> 00:02:27.040 It's something we're constantly modelling with our students, 00:02:27.040 --> 00:02:28.920 and that ability to work with different 00:02:28.920 --> 00:02:30.240 people is really important. 00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:32.520 It's a really welcoming community. 00:02:32.520 --> 00:02:35.680 Everyone is really passionate about what they study 00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:37.400 and really passionate to get involved. 00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:40.400 I feel like a lot of conversations in academia, 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:44.760 but also in industries are very specialised and a bit 00:02:44.760 --> 00:02:46.040 too narrow minded. 00:02:46.040 --> 00:02:49.200 So interdisciplinary approach in Liberal Arts 00:02:49.200 --> 00:02:52.200 would bring me into conversation with different perspectives. 00:02:52.200 --> 00:02:54.280 Our students become learners for life. 00:02:54.280 --> 00:02:57.520 Our students understand that the character that they formed 00:02:57.520 --> 00:02:59.320 throughout these years at Warwick 00:02:59.320 --> 00:03:00.840 is really essential to who they are. 00:03:00.840 --> 00:03:01.680 And I think that's another thing 00:03:01.680 --> 00:03:03.600 that distinguishes Liberal Arts education. 00:03:03.600 --> 00:03:06.560 We grow with our students. 00:03:06.560 --> 00:03:08.320 The people our students are when they make 00:03:08.320 --> 00:03:10.520 their applications are not the same people 00:03:10.520 --> 00:03:13.040 who walk through the door on day one of year one, 00:03:13.040 --> 00:03:14.720 and are absolutely not the same people 00:03:14.720 --> 00:03:16.360 who walk across the stage at graduation 00:03:16.360 --> 00:03:18.120 and go out into the workforce, 00:03:18.120 --> 00:03:20.000 or further study or whatever it is they want to do, 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:23.960 and our programme offers the flexibility to grow with them 00:03:23.960 --> 00:03:27.240 as their ideas, as their interests, and as their perspectives 00:03:27.240 --> 00:03:28.120 change as they do, 00:03:28.120 --> 00:03:29.640 and I think that's really one of the wonderful things 00:03:29.640 --> 00:03:31.360 that our programme offers.