such as business, the Dean of Arts and Sciences at Bermuda College said liberal arts degrees were also necessary to foster a community which could adjust to changes taking place worldwide.

Roy Wright agreed it was beneficial for Bermudian students to study business-related subjects, but added they should only specialise after they had experienced a wide range of subjects.

"Bermuda's economy is quintessentially one of commerce, so one may argue that youngsters need to specialise, but a person needs specialisation as well as breadth,'' he said.

"The liberal arts area is predicated upon the philosophy that the broader a person is, the better person he or she becomes.

"With the way the world is going today, students are required to have a broad perspective on life,'' he noted.

Mr. Wright said colleges and universities should prepare students for a changing world by enabling them to communicate and adjust.

He said: "The challenge of post-secondary education in the 21st Century is going to be to provide the opportunities for students to have breadth as well as areas of specialisation.

"Even if students get degrees in hospitality, for example, students should still be able to write, apply mathematics, know about culture and, with environmental issues on the rise, one needs to know effect of one chemical agent upon another,'' he said.

"We need to ask questions about ourselves as an Island and that's what a liberal arts education allows.'' He said 90 to 95 percent of the students in the arts and sciences programme at the Bermuda College were continuing their education overseas and many of those were studying psychology and sociology in record numbers with plans to move into business.

He agreed there was a need for business-related degrees on the Island, but added that, at some point in time, those areas would dry up.

Instead of pursuing the big pay cheque, Mr. Wright suggested a different approach.

He said: "I tell students to go into any area they want, but to make sure they are good at it because, in my experience, many youngsters get talked out of an area they really want by parents, and go into another field and what happens? They wind up miserable.

"I encourage students to seek self-fulfilment and happiness and I tell them that if they are good at what they do the financial rewards will come.'' But Mr. Wright said one of the questions to ask was whether the business sector was receptive to non-traditional choices.

While Bermuda has what he called one of the highest "credentialised'' work forces per capita, he said people mistake those credentials for being educated.

And he suggested that Bermuda should work to become a society where it is possible to be intellectual and specialised.

He also said Bermuda needed to move away from the belief that white collar workers were better people.

"A welder may work harder than someone who works in an office all day. A white collar position is not for everyone and we need to stop thinking that those people are somehow inferior,'' he said.

Liberal arts degrees are praised elsewhere in the world for teaching students to think and write, while familiarising them with components of their major and exposing them to a wide array of ideas.

But local students who head abroad for further education say they are encouraged to pursue specialised degrees in the business-related areas of accounting, insurance and computers.

Royal Gazette student reporter Lakilah Harrigan, in the first in a two-part series, asked students, professors, the Ministry of Education and scholarship committees whether a first degree in liberal arts was valued any less than a specialised degree.