Liberal Arts Department

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Liberal Arts Degree

Associate in Arts (A.A.) Degree

Liberal Arts A.A. Degree (PDF) - The Associate in Arts degree in Liberal Arts has three areas of emphasis: Language, Humanities, and Speech and Communication. A liberal arts education allows students to explore any number of career possibilities. Employment prospects are generally strong after graduation; often employers prefer to hire people with the education in the right skills (critical thinking, writing, and analysis) rather than the right subjects. Liberal arts degrees are also an excellent choice for students who want to pursue a higher degree, as universities often prefer candidates with a proven ability to learn and succeed. A liberal arts education offers much more than career-specific training, because it teaches students to understand problems, develop solutions, and lead a balanced and well-rounded life. This degree has 3 options:

• Language Emphasis - Designed to help students demonstrate progressive oral competence of the language; decipher progressively more difficult texts; become more competent in writing ability; and demonstrate rudimentary to more advanced level of cultural and historical understanding of the societies associated with the target language. Classes prepare students for entry into a variety of careers in which effective critical thinking, effective writing skills, and multilingual skills are important.
• Humanities Emphasis - Designed to help students develop an awareness of the ways in which people through the ages and in different cultures have responded to themselves and the world around them in artistic and cultural creation and help the student develop aesthetic understanding and an ability to make value judgments. Classes prepare students for entry into a variety of careers in which effective critical thinking and effective writing skills are important.
• Speech and Communication Emphasis - Designed to help students to communicate with diverse audiences in multiple contexts; describe and analyze the symbolic nature of communication and how it creates individual, group, and cultural reality; identify, evaluate, and utilize evidence to support claims used in presentations and arguments; and demonstrate through performance and analysis the importance of both verbal and nonverbal communication. Classes prepare students for entry into careers in which effective communication skills are important, such as education, public relations, and law.

Additional Information

Review a sample listing of Courses in this area of study. Review academic requirements in the Catalog and in the Curriculum Guides. All students are encouraged to meet with a counselor to review academic program requirements and/or have questions answered.

Related Information at Ohlone

• Art
• English
• English as a Second Language
• Journalism
• Language Arts
• Social Science
• Sociology
• Speech and Communication Studies

Division

Humanities, Social Sciences, and Mathematics Division.