Liberal Arts Education, Student-Centered Learning and the Art of Reflective Judgment

One of the most important skills that university students need to develop to function in tomorrow’s society is the ability to make reflective judgments. This ability to make decisions in the absence of determinate and authoritative criteria will form the enduring basis of careers and meaningful lives in a world in which artificial intelligence and global competition are becoming ever more present. Fostering this ability requires a student-centered approach to higher education, in which students take control of both what they study and how they study it, so that they can cultivate their own agency. Liberal arts programs, as they have appeared in Europe since the Bologna process started, can provide examples of how this approach can be realized in the context of the modern university.