Skills gained

Studying at the Master's Programme in Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Helsinki you will gain programme-level skills as well as specific learning outcomes based on your specialisation.
What will you learn?

The Helsinki Liberal Arts and Sciences programme is an interdisciplinary programme that joins diverse fields of knowledge. Through being exposed to, and needing to integrate disciplinary outlooks, students will learn, alongside disciplinary skills, broadly useful meta-skills of interdisciplinary contextualisation, analysis, problem-solving and critical thinking.​

Studying at the Master's Programme in Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Helsinki you will gain programme-level skills as well as specific learning outcomes based on your specialisation.
Programme-level key learning outcomes

After completing the programme, the student is able to describe how different branches of science do research, how they relate to each other, and how to utilise this knowledge to solve global problems. In addition, the student has gained disciplinary expertise from more than one discipline of science, which they can apply to problems and utilise as a base for further (inter)disciplinary studies in a master’s programme. 

Breaking down these objectives further around five themes, the programme-level key learning outcomes are: 

1. Epistemology of Science 

After completing the programme, students are able to: 

  • explain how scientific knowledge is created and revised across academic disciplines. 
  • describe foundational concepts and theories from multiple disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and computing. 
  • compare and contrast knowledge produced by different academic disciplines. 

2. Methodology 

After completing the programme, students are able to: 

  • describe core methods in different disciplines in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. 
  • describe different methods, and the knowledge they produce, and relate methods to each other in terms of their epistemic foundations. 
  • apply different methods in practice to gather and evaluate evidence. 
  • formulate evidence-based arguments. 

 3. Critical thinking skills and competence for interdisciplinarity 

After completing the programme, students are able to: 

  • identify practical, substantive research questions. 
  • analyse a theoretical or practical problem and apply relevant epistemological and methodological knowledge, and disciplinary tools or interdisciplinary approaches to solve it. 
  • recognise and identify gaps and intersections among disciplines and possibilities for interdisciplinary research and problem-solving. 
  • apply critical thinking and argumentation skills and practice their use in a variety of situations. 

 4. Collaboration and communication 

After completing the programme, students are able to: 

  • participate in collaborative scholarly work. 
  • collaborate with colleagues from diverse contexts, various disciplines and with different worldviews in a constructive manner. 
  • communicate in both public as well as academic settings, within and across disciplines. 

 5. Bildung/global citizenship 

After completing the programme, students are able to: 

  • develop ethical and inclusive scholarship. 
  • recognise global dimensions of local problems and local dimensions of global problems. 
  • promote sustainable, democratic, and peaceful solutions in their own discipline and beyond. 

Apart from these programme-level outcomes, every study track in the programme has its own outcomes, which combine methodological and subject knowledge from at least two disciplines into a coherent interdisciplinary profile. In addition to (inter)disciplinary expertise, this profile also enables continuing into a disciplinary or interdisciplinary master’s. 
Specialisation specific learning outcomes

Students in the Data Science study track acquire skills to write and use computer programs for data science in cross-disciplinary applications, and they learn the fundamentals of the mathematical and statistical methods underlying modern analytical methods. The students also learn at least the basics in one or more other disciplines of their choice. The study track accommodates a substantial amount of freely chosen studies to support various multi-disciplinary combinations or a deeper insight into computer science. The studies include hands-on exercises and projects to learn practical skills and to gain cross-disciplinary experience.

Students in the Digital Humanities study track will learn how to apply skills in data science to problems within the humanities. After completing the programme, in addition to the general level outcomes, students are able to: 

  • design data science workflows targeting humanities questions in a discipline of their choice 
  • implement those workflows in practice through their knowledge of programming, algorithms and statistics 
  • act as an expert in bridging data science and humanities in interdisciplinary research settings 

Students of Ecology and Adaptation study track will learn to

  • apply key concepts of ecology, evolutionary biology and adaptation appropriately.
  • understand how various adaptations influence the performance of organisms in a changing environment.
  • recognize the impact of human activities on ecological processes.
  • design and conduct experiments, as well as analyze and present data appropriately. 

Students in the Economics of Natural Resources study track will be able to:

  • apply the core concepts, methods and principles of microeconomics
  • recognize and analyze questions related to the use of natural resources, agriculture, food and environment from an economic perspective
  • analyze policies related to environment and sustainable resource use  
     

 

The students in the Resource Management of Global Forests will learn

  • the basic concepts of remote sensing, the promise of different technologies in the context of forest resource mapping and 
  • environmental monitoring and ability to carry out GIS analyses
  • the basic biophysical and socioeconomic mechanisms of tropical production and land use systems.
  • environmental degradation associated with tropical land uses and the management systems
  • methodology for sustainable production and environmental conservation in tropics
  • the major international agreements and policy processes related to global land uses
  • the approach of multi-objective planning for sustainable forest management
     

Students in the Social Data Science study track acquire skills to write and use computer programs for social data science applications, integrating cross-disciplinary knowledge with a strong foundation in social sciences. They learn the fundamentals of mathematical and statistical methods, which are essential for social data science.
Career and continuation options

Ample studies show that Bachelor's Programme in Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) curricula are efficient in providing skills highly valued both at present by employers and especially as a response to the increasing long-term dynamism and uncertainty in the job market.
More about the programme