PSA: This is what Liberal Arts students do at King’s

No, it’s not fine art.

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Have you ever asked someone what course they’re doing and their answer was “it’s complicated”? Chances are they do Liberal Arts.

They probably tried explaining what they study with “Uhhh… Do you know about the American system?”, “… I major in Politics”, or even the classic “It’s basically like IB , but for higher education”.

Well, contrary to popular belief, Liberal Arts students don’t do fine arts. 

The Liberal Arts BA that King’s offers regroups a range of subjects from the Arts and Humanities that students can pick and choose from.

First year students can choose “pathway modules” to introduce them to the variety of subjects that are available to them, while second and third year students choose a major that will define their degree and determine half of the credits that they will take until they graduate. Complicated, huh? Imagine being in our shoes.

Not only do we have to explain to everyone – and by everyone, we mean EVERYONE – what our degree is,  we’re also spread across so many different departments that we don’t even know where we belong anymore.


Thankfully, we have compulsory modules that allow all Liberal Arts students to regroup as a department once or twice a week, but apart from that we’re basically the orphans of Strand.

We can choose subjects and majors from Politics, Geography, Film, Digital Culture, Modern Languages, Classics, Music, Philosophy, English, Comp Lit, or even History.

We have the chance to explore whatever we’re driven by and create an interdisciplinary degree that regroups all of our passions. 

Our degree might be incredibly diverse and unique, but it’s also extremely challenging. Imagine switching between a film studies seminar and a politics lecture, writing an essay about new media then going to a geography tutorial? Not anyone can do that, but Liberal Arts students manage to do it graciously.

If you’re a Liberal Arts student reading this and people like to make fun of your alien degree that they don’t know anything about, send them this article and let them realise that you and your wide array of unrelated modules are the elite.

And if you’re reading this to understand what your Liberal Arts friend ACTUALLY does at uni: well, you have great taste, because curious people that have a multitude of interests are RARE. And precious. And please, stop asking us to draw your portrait.

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