Before going to university I changed my mind about what to study every few months. Some of my picks included archeology, microbiology, fine art, and medicine. But I decided to study English at King’s College London. I thought English would be a good subject that allowed me to explore different topics throughout my degree, and it did, to an extent. But I was still left unsatisfied. I found the modules were too similar to each other and I spent so much time reading that I started to hate literature.
In March 2020, when I finished my first year early thanks to the pandemic, I found myself strangely relieved. At that point I realised I wasn’t doing the right degree. Since I had been living in London, I had spent a lot of time in art galleries. So I decided to apply for art history courses and was about to accept an offer from the University of Birmingham. However, about a week before I had to confirm my choice through UCAS I realised once again that art history wasn’t right for me either. At this point, I started stressing that I wouldn’t like any courses and that university just wasn’t for me.
Change of plan
My mum then reminded me about a course I’d discovered at the University of Birmingham open day when I was originally applying, LANS (Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences). In all honesty, we’d only spoken to that department because they were giving away free tote bags. But a degree that let you pick modules from different subjects appealed to me. Different universities have different requirements for the modules you take. For example, UCL Arts and Sciences students have to take a foreign language module. At Birmingham, LANS students have to take a compulsory interdisciplinary module in first and second year. But, other than that, we have free choice of modules across the university.
Something that really appealed to me at Birmingham is that LANS students can take science modules, whereas most Liberal Arts courses restrict students to arts, humanities, and social science modules. In the first two years of my degree I have taken modules in ancient history, international relations, anthropology, biology and more. But my favourite modules have been ‘Global History’ and ‘Evolution of humans and other animals’.
I really like that studying Liberal Arts lets me look at subjects in new ways that I may not have thought about as a single-honours student. For example, learning about the Roman Empire in an ancient history module helped me understand how Mussolini used Roman history in propaganda, which we studied in an international relations module. I also really like that I’m not doing the same thing all the time. If I get bored of reading anthropology texts, I have a biology lab soon that will be a change of pace.
Positives outweigh negatives
There are downsides to studying Liberal Arts, of course. Sometimes I feel like I have to play catch-up to understand concepts that single-honours students have learnt in other modules. Sometimes rules about assignments can be inconsistent. That can mean I lose marks in one department for something I was told to do in another, which can be frustrating. I have also struggled to make friends on my course since we don’t share many of the same modules, so most of the LANS students I do know, I met through societies.
However, for me the positives definitely outweigh the negatives and I couldn’t imagine doing a single honours degree anymore. Next year I will be going on my year abroad, which is a requirement for LANS students at Birmingham, and heavily encouraged in a lot of other Liberal Arts courses.
I’m really glad I decided to switch to studying Liberal Arts. If, like me, you know you want to go to uni but constantly change your mind about what you want to study, I would definitely recommend it!
See also: My first time in a lecture