Why AI will save the liberal arts degree (and not destroy it)

Is a liberal arts education still worth it in the age of AI? Or is college about to become obsolete?

Host Emily Dreyfuss is saving up to send her two kids to a liberal arts school like Wesleyan University, where she and her husband met. But as AI promises to replace everything from coding to essay writing, she's starting to wonder: do liberal arts schools still make sense to attend?

This week, Emily sits down with two Wesleyan insiders to make the case for liberal arts education. First, she talks with President Michael S. Roth about what concerns him about AI, why small classes are the new live events you can't miss, and why schools like his will thrive while big lecture-hall universities struggle. Then Emily goes inside the classroom with Lauren Silber, Wesleyan writing professor and head of its Writing Center, who launched a first-year seminar called “Writing in the Age of Gen AI.” Silber shares what a campus survey of 700 students revealed about how Gen Z actually uses AI and why she believes AI might actually save the liberal arts degree.

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