Generic Skills Development in European Liberal Arts and Sciences Programs: A Student Perspective

European advocates of Liberal Arts and Sciences education often claim that this educational model is highly effective at teaching students a range of generic, transferable, or 21st-century skills, which are thought to be vital for success in the labour market of the future. However, there is little empirical research into whether and how these programs do so. This paper examines how European Liberal Arts and Sciences students experience how their programs teach them generic skills. It is based on a significant number of interviews with students from a range of programs across Europe. It concludes that a multidisciplinary curriculum with significant freedom of choice, active student-centred pedagogy with open assessment, and an emphasis on academic community are experienced as key features that foster the development of generic skills. This finding both confirms and expands the current theoretical understanding of generic skills acquisition, as well as yielding several suggestions for how other programs might teach these skills better.