Living Smart

IV PUBLIC POLICY & SOCIAL SCIENCE 120 121 Liberal arts come of age in changing times Prof. Cameron CAMPBELL Professor, Division of Social Science I n the age of technology, many wonder whether a traditional liberal arts major is still desirable. Indeed, students majoring in humanities and social sciences often face the question: “what will you do with your major?” Compared to peers in majors focused on professions, there does not seem to be a simple, straightforward answer to this question. As educators in humanities and social sciences, our challenge is to not only help students answer such questions, but also to innovate our pedagogy to deal with the challenges of the 21st century, especially changes in the labor market and the broader economy. Today, young people in Hong Kong are concerned about their ability to move up in society, and they tend to choose majors that can make them competitive in the employment market. One of the approaches we have taken at HKUST is to combine elements of a traditional liberal arts education with the study of quantitative data analysis in a new major, quantitative social analysis. Ou r goa l i s t o equ i p s t uden t s w i t h a b r oad understanding of society, economics and politics, the ability to think critically, and practical skills that will be useful for work or postgraduate training. With a focus on quantitative analysis in a social science context, students learn how to gather and analyze social data, detect and interpret patterns, link cause and effect, and recommend actions based on the findings. The benefit of such a novel, integrated approach to liberal arts education is evident: while traditional social science programs may not have an explicit goal in terms of the specific knowledge and skills they want graduates to acquire, our students will be able to independently address problems and answer questions wherever they are working or studying, making them ideal candidates for any post that makes use of social data, broadly defined. From historical questions to problems the world faces today, the challenges of our time demand us to widen, not narrow, our education model and prepare students for a lifetime of learning. Tech advances are happening very quickly that any specific set of skills may become obsolete in the blink of an eye. The meaning of a liberal arts education historically was to train a well-rounded person who can think broadly and with that person’ s training, produce solutions to a variety of problems; it is only natural that our definition of a liberal arts education should now evolve. Published on November 07, 2018