Description and Learning Outcomes

Program Description

The liberal arts program provides students with a wide‐ranging education that develops important critical and creative thinking skills that can be utilized in a vast number of occupations and academic programs. Students will develop these skills through the exploration of a number of disciplines including the sciences, humanities, mathematics and the creative arts. Through the study of the liberal arts students will also develop important understandings of personal integrity and community responsibility.

The associate’s degree program may be completed in 2 years for students who carry a full course load of 30 credits per year.

Learning Outcomes

Students completing a Liberal Arts degree at NEC will be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the basis of a liberal arts education: i.e. a recognition of the inter‐relationships between the arts/humanities, social sciences and natural sciences;
• Apply critical thinking and creative thinking skills;
• Perform quantitative skills;
• Apply information literacy skills;
• Demonstrate an understanding of what it means to be human and how humans interact in societies, both locally and globally;
• Demonstrate an understanding of the interdependence between humans and the natural World;
• Apply the writing process in the context of a sound rhetorical and disciplined approach in order to develop competency as effective writers.