New UMaine minor in professional skills for the liberal arts starts this fall
The University of Maine College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will offer a new minor in professional skills for the liberal arts beginning in fall 2021. The program, designed for students in the UMaine College of Liberal Arts and Sciences pursuing a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree, focuses on developing professional skills that enhance early career employment opportunities.
The interdisciplinary, 21-credit professional skills for the liberal arts minor, which includes coursework in social psychology, leadership, statistics, communication (including training in presentation and speaking skills, professional writing, and coding or design), and an optional internship or co-curricular experience, supplements the strengths of a traditional education in the humanities, arts or social sciences.
All B.A. students in the UMaine College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are required to complete a minor as part of their studies. The new professional skills minor affords students the opportunity to enrich and develop important professional skills and knowledge applicable to a broad range of potential career paths. The minor helps to define and develop the transferable skills of a liberal arts education and will enhance professional opportunities.
“In acquiring a liberal arts education, students become critical thinkers, engaged citizens, and collaborative individuals with the resilience and flexibility to take on a variety of careers,” says Timothy Cole, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Surveys consistently show that these skills are among those most in demand by employers. The new professional skills for the liberal arts minor celebrates and builds on this skill set by addressing the fact that liberal arts careers, while rewarding, are often less linear and less directly tied to one’s studies than those which emerge out of technical or applied degrees.
“There is extensive evidence that liberal arts graduates perform and earn well on the job market, especially long-term,” says Emily Haddad, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “While this new minor will provide students with important transferable skills, its deeper aim is to help students bring their learning in the liberal arts to the very earliest stages of their career, launching them into their first job out of college and toward a satisfying future in whatever profession they pursue.”
For more information, contact associate dean Tim Cole, tmcole@maine.edu; 207.581.3844.
Contact: Brian Jansen, brian.jansen@maine.edu