6 Best Liberal Arts Master of Arts (MA) Degree Programs for 2024

The Online Master of Arts in Liberal Arts is designed to provide graduate-level opportunities for students to pursue studies not provided by traditional department programs. Geared towards non-traditional students (especially working adults), the degree helps students pursue personal enhancement and serves as an incubator for programs of study not currently formally created. This program is ideal for students to reestablish their academic careers after professional or personal hiatus in a manner suited to their uniquely developed interests as well as time constraints.

The Interdisciplinary Humanities graduate group is an innovative graduate program that incorporates anthropology, the arts, history, and language and literature to offer individualized, research-based courses of study that explore cultures in their local manifestations and a global context.

The Master of Arts in Museum Studies is the only program of its kind in the State of Louisiana. The program can be completed entirely online or on campus. Students matriculating in the program will undertake a rigorous course of learning in Museology, the branch of knowledge dedicated to the study of the theories, procedures, and managerial concepts of museums: institutions for the acquisition, preservation, study, and exhibition of works of artistic, historical or scientific value.

The MLA in Liberal Studies offers two “build-your-own” tracks. In the Focused Studies track, students explore a particular subject from within the larger perspective of the liberal arts, earning 18 of the 33 required hours in a specific discipline. As part of their core requirements, students may take courses in pedagogy and education, theory, or research methods, which would enable them to teach at the community college level (with the 18hrs), continue on for the Ph.D., or work in areas related to their chosen field of study.

Museums today need visionary leaders. This program offers the theory and practice of all aspects of the museum field, teaching innovative skills and knowledge to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

The Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) program brings today’s headlines into conversation with classic statements on humanity’s most enduring questions. Students investigate how our cultural, social, and natural worlds intersect in order to understand issues in our own lives in their full complexity. Together, they examine a variety of materials across a wide array of academic disciplines in order to integrate disparate insights into a view of the whole. All the courses in the MALS program are run as small, discussion-based, Socratic seminars. Students develop close working relationships with each other and program faculty, whose expertise represents the range of traditional arts and sciences. In addition to intensive seminars, students work individually with program faculty on either a focused capstone project of their devising or on a problem-based project in which they integrate knowledge and insights from across the liberal arts.