Are you a fuzzy or a techie? These terms, first coined at Stanford University, differentiates between students who study humanities and social sciences (fuzzy) with those who pursue computer science and pure sciences (techie). This informal division, explained by Scott Hartley in his book The Fuzzy and the Techie, is accepted worldwide, with liberal arts often being a part of the “fuzzies” camp. However, the true definition of a liberal arts education is one that awards a non-professional qualification. This means that all subjects outside of medicine, engineering, and business are considered a part of liberal arts, not just those confined to humanities, social sciences and languages.

Liberal arts education isn’t a novel concept. In fact, it dates back to the ancient Greco-Roman world which combined lessons in grammar, rhetoric and logic, later expanding this to all subjects aiming to provide a general education. This still continues to be the goal of a liberal arts education, which has become the foundation of education systems in North America, with Yale University first adopting this concept after the Yale Report 1828. Today, there are over 500 US universities that pride themselves on being completely “liberal arts” where they do NOT offer professional degree programmes. Some of these colleges are Williams College and Pomona College.