Course summary

Liberal Arts are among the earliest intellectual pursuits, and they are associated with the training, development, and empowerment of free citizens. A BA in Liberal Arts with International Study at The University of Manchester will enable students, through a number of bespoke modules and a wide range of optional courses, to recognise and respond to local and global challenges, as well as to understand and explore key concepts-such as humanness, morality, value, and truth-that underwrite what it is to be a free, active, and engaged citizen in the world today. Core Liberal Arts modules - which cover topics including the history of humanities, rhetoric, ethics, and social responsibility - deliver these aims through a combination of lectures, seminars, tutorials, and research workshops that introduce challenge-led learning and interdisciplinary research methods and theories. Teaching is enhanced on these modules by links to cultural institutions such as the John Rylands Library, the Science and Industry Museum, and Manchester Museum, where ideas from the arts and humanities are presented to a range of academic and non-academic audiences. In their final year, students have the opportunity to work with non-academic institutions and organisations in Manchester, drawing on their skills honed in other modules across the programme, to develop their own world-facing research. In addition to bespoke interdisciplinary Liberal Arts modules, students are able to tailor their interests throughout the Liberal Arts programme, and respond to key issues that affect the flourishing of free citizens from social inequality to cultural diversity, and from AI to climate change. Students also have the opportunity to complement this knowledge by taking a language, specialising in a Minor subject through Flexible Honours, or distributing their studies across different interdisciplinary thematic clusters. The Liberal Arts with International Study programme gives students further opportunities to engage with interdisciplinary learning and global challenges through a placement in an overseas university. Students on this four-year programme will spend a year abroad, during which time they will experience different approaches to teaching and interdisciplinarity, as well as different means of civic engagement and social responsibility, which can enrich independent study options in the final year of the programme back in Manchester. The year abroad also develops organisational and interpersonal skills that can enhance a student's employability profile.