The Richmond Approach

A life-changing education should connect your interests and passions to the needs of the worlds around you. You may have heard this called a “liberal arts education” — but at Richmond, it’s so much more than that.

It teaches you to think critically and draw connections between disciplines that others may not see. By linking areas of study, you’ll develop a deeper understanding of your areas of focus and discover new opportunities along the way.

How can your interest in sustainability combine with economics? Where does cognitive science fit in with the study of leadership? A liberal arts education helps you connect the dots in your own way and draw the line to your next move.

Sure, small class sizes, an emphasis on research, hands-on learning, and close collaboration with faculty mentors are pieces of it. But what does it really look like?

People trained in the Liberal Arts learn to tolerate ambiguity and to bring order out of apparent confusion. They have the kind of sideways thinking and cross-classifying habit of mind that comes from learning, among other things, the many different ways of looking at literary works, social systems, chemical processes or languages.

Roger Smith

Former chairman and CEO of General Motors

Richmond is a place where a chemistry major finds herself studying the socioeconomic forces that lead low-income children to ingest poisons from cheap toys. It’s a place where the orchestra’s first cello is also on the football team and the winner of a business pitch competition. (Both real examples. You can check.)

Richmond is a place of connection, with all the resources and opportunities you need to back you up in being, well, you.

In the world’s ever-evolving landscape, graduates trained in the liberal arts are becoming increasingly desirable. They are the effective communicators and innovative problem solvers who recognize creative solutions where others see none.

Students who come here are Spiders because they are thinkers, creators, and achievers. More than anything, they are ready to apply themselves without limits.

With training in liberal arts, you’ll have lifelong flexibility in whatever you choose to pursue.

Our Spiders go on to graduate school, work at Fortune 500 companies, or start their own businesses. They find success in the infinite ways they define it, but they share one thing in common: Whatever they choose to do, they’re ready.

The ability to recognize opportunities and move in new — and sometimes unexpected — directions will benefit you no matter your interests or aspirations. A liberal arts education is designed to equip students for just such flexibility and imagination.

Drew Gilpin Faust

Historian and first woman president of Harvard University

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The Richmond Approach