To help you through the application process for our Liberal Studies degree, we've assembled some of the more commonly asked questions here. If your question isn't listed here, you are welcome to contact the Admission Office at info@bnu.edu.pk You can also contact our Admission Office at following numbers:

• 042-38100156 (Ext. 483, 487, 484 & 777)
• 042-35975704-06 /08/10 (Ext. 483, 487, 484 & 777)
• 042-35975728 (Direct Line)

*Our timings are 10 am to 4 pm (Monday to Friday).

• What will I do after pursuing a BA (Hons.) in Liberal Studies degree?

  A fairly large number of career paths will immediately open up for you after pursing this degree. Our graduates normally tend to enter professions in the realm of civil services, marketing, advertising, human resource management, journalism, film-making, and entertainment media. This degree will also offer you an excellent first-degree option that will enable you to find your moorings in higher-level education in the domains of law, journalism, sociology, comparative literature, economics or business studies. It has been internationally ascertained through credible research that after having done their first degrees in liberal studies, students tend to become far more productive, creative and socially responsible in their chosen fields of further education as well as professional endeavors. A broader vision enables you to scale greater heights.

• To what extent is this degree different from the social sciences or humanities degrees offered by other institutions?

  This degree offers by far the single most grounded and comprehensive liberal arts education in Pakistan. It is a pioneering initiative that is unparalleled in both scope and depth.

• What is this degree all about? And what shall we study in this academic program?

  This academic program is fundamentally anchored in the broad principles of liberal education that seeks to foster a cohesive world-view through multi-disciplinary education, enabling students to critically understand a large number of questions that define, shape or afflict contemporary sociology, culture, economy and politics. There are five broad-based characteristics of the BNU Liberal Studies degree offered by the School of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

  • It is a fundamentally multi-disciplinary agenda and students are required to establish academic grounding in the basic debates and issues that define the disciplines of Sociology/Anthropology, History, Philosophy, Political Studies, Cultural Studies and Literature. After two years of basic education, students are encouraged to begin to narrow down their focus in the subjects of their interest and choice. You can in the third and fourth year choose to major in any of the above mentioned disciplines. You can also major in one discipline and minor in another. For instance, you can choose to major in Political Studies with a minor in Sociology. Similarly, you can choose to major in Literature with a minor in History or any other combination that you find interesting in your academic endeavors. We trust our students and expect them to make rational and responsible decisions.
  • This degree will enable you to inculcate the habit and discipline of critical thought and you will learn to think outside the box, thereby learning to challenge a large number of ideas, prejudices, inclinations and attitudes that characterize social, cultural and political fictions or untruths of the time we live in. We proactively encourage our students to adopt an unconventional and radical stance, in order to be able to think anew and to act anew.
  • We do not believe in blind mimicry or uncritical imitation. While we have a tremendous regard for knowledge that is produced and distributed globally, we are at the same time exceptionally mindful of the need to recover and reclaim our own local knowledge produced in the Indian subcontinent as well as in the broader Muslim world. In other words, we strive to offer courses that seek to synthesize the local and the global by initiating a productive dialogue between modern knowledge and traditional sensibilities.
  • We make a concerted attempt to bridge the domain of abstract ideas and the world of concrete and material world of social and political conflicts. For instance, while grappling with the abstract thought of Nietzsche, Marx or Weber, you will also be carrying out anthropological/sociological research in the walled city of Lahore. While learning to read the poetry of Baudelaire, Rilke and Bulleh Shah, you will also be engaged in writing a paper on the impact of colonialism on Indian institutions or political and economic crises in the urban slums of Lahore and Karachi.
  • Since we strongly believe in the significance of broad-based multi-disciplinary education, we encourage our students to pursue elective courses that are offered by other BNU schools. This provision enables them to enhance their skills. For instance, you can also take courses in journalism/media studies, film/television studies, visual communication, design studies and psychology.