Your interests don’t have to fit neatly into one box—and neither does your future.
In the College of the Liberal Arts, you can explore what matters to you, connect interests across disciplines, and build an academic path that prepares you not just for your first job, but for a career that can grow and change with you.
With nearly 150 undergraduate majors, minors, integrated undergraduate-graduate degrees (IUGs), associate degrees, and certificates, you’ll have plenty of ways to build an education around what you’re passionate about.
Your Interests Can Become Your Career
A liberal arts degree prepares you for more than one job title or one career path. You’ll develop knowledge in the subjects you choose while building skills employers value across industries—communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, research, collaboration, adaptability, and the ability to understand people and perspectives.
Those skills give Liberal Arts graduates flexibility. Your first job doesn’t have to determine your entire career. You might move between roles, industries, or even fields as your interests evolve and new opportunities emerge.
That isn’t a limitation of a liberal arts education. It’s one of its strengths.
You’re building a foundation you can draw on throughout your career—even as technology changes, industries evolve, and jobs emerge that may not exist today.
What interests you? Start exploring.
Understand people, organizations, and markets—and use your perspective to help businesses and industries evolve.
Explore data, artificial intelligence, and emerging technologies while considering their impact on people and society.
Understand human behavior and relationships, support others, and help create environments where people can thrive.
Examine the many factors that shape individual and community well-being and discover new ways to address complex health challenges.
Explore how ideas, stories, language, and media shape the way people communicate, connect, and understand the world.
Examine government, law, policy, and institutions and explore how they can address complex challenges facing society.
Understand cultures, identities, and social systems and explore how you can help build a more equitable world.
Explore the relationship between people and the environment and discover ways to address challenges facing our planet.
Develop the knowledge and cross-cultural perspective to communicate, collaborate, and solve problems in an interconnected world.
You Don’t Have to Figure It Out Alone
Your interests may change. Your goals may change. That’s part of the process.
Liberal Arts Student Services provides programs, resources, and people who can help you explore your options, make connections, find community, and turn your interests into opportunities throughout your time at Penn State.
Academic Advising
Explore majors, minors, and other academic opportunities and build an academic plan around your interests and goals.
Chaiken Center for Student Success
Find community, build confidence, and connect with peer and professional support to help you navigate Penn State and succeed.
Career Enrichment Network
Explore career possibilities, gain experience, connect with employers and alumni, and prepare for life after Penn State.
Academic Scholarships
Explore scholarship opportunities that can help support your Liberal Arts education and experiences.
Office of Community Connection and Belonging
Build connections, find community, and engage in opportunities that foster belonging across the College of the Liberal Arts.
Paterno Fellows Program
Challenge yourself academically, pursue meaningful experiences beyond the classroom, and build an education shaped by your interests and ambitions.
Put Your Interests Into Action
Your major is one part of your liberal arts education. Experiences outside the classroom help you put what you’re learning into practice, develop professional skills, explore possible careers, and discover what you want to do next.
Internships can help you test a career path. Research can teach you how to investigate complex questions. Education abroad can strengthen your ability to navigate different cultures and perspectives. Student organizations can give you opportunities to lead, collaborate, and create.
Each experience adds something to your story—and helps you build a combination of knowledge, skills, and experiences that’s uniquely yours.
See Where Your Interests Can Take You
There’s no single way to turn an interest into a career. See how Liberal Arts students are putting their interests into action through internships, education abroad, research, student organizations, and other experiences—and building their own paths along the way.
Ava Gianna Nociforo
Veronica Figg
Kendall Penkunas
Nicholas Groene
Zach Hamer-Lang
Rand Tayseer Alkhunaizi
