While experts and academics advocate for the importance of a Liberal Arts education, many students pose the question “Is a Liberal Arts degree worth it?” We examined this question by interviewing four women at various stages in their academic careers to explore the ways that Liberal Arts education influences students’ lives in and outside of the classroom. We present this work as experimental documentary short films that combine animation, photography, and video. Each student’s story examines the subtle and complex relationship between the liberal arts classroom environment and their personal growth as humans. Our work focuses specifically on the stories of students with underrepresented narratives navigating the challenging paths of grieving and healing, learning the language of depression, defying the myths of aging, and surviving cancer. Despite their obvious differences, we found common threads in their stories that can be attributed to the influence of an education in a liberal arts setting. In their own ways, each student expressed how the liberal arts provided them with a means to understand and articulate the complexity of their lives and gave them the tools to converse with individuals and communities unlike their own. This experimental approach to filmmaking underscores the effectiveness of interdisciplinary collaboration and reveals the universal in the personal. These films demonstrate how the liberal arts provide an important vehicle for understanding, navigating, and articulating the complexity (and simplicity) of being human.

Produced by Ashley Alex '18, Muna Scekomar '18, and Professor Todd Deutsch, Art and Art History.

Supported by the St. Catherine University Collaborative Undergraduate Research Summer Scholars Program

Produced by Ryan Johnson '19, Frencia Stephenson '19, and Professor Todd Deutsch, Art and Art History.

Supported by the St. Catherine University Collaborative Undergraduate Research Summer Scholars Program