Many of the world’s critical problems today can not be solved with one discipline: engineering, policy science, or economics alone is not enough to develop climate technology, implement artificial intelligence governance regulations, or resolve the problem of increasing economic inequality.
As simpler tasks are taken care of by new technologies and artificial intelligence assistants, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development contends that it is important for humans to develop critical thinking that integrates cohesive thinking across various fields. Interdisciplinary thinking is becoming a favored skillset not only because it allows real-world problem solving, but also because it is increasingly valued by employers and allows for flexibility and innovation.
According to the World Economic Forum, jobs in the lacst decade have more frequently been requiring employees to demonstrate expertise not only technically, but also analytically, creatively, and socially. Additionally, the most rapidly growing skillsets desired by employers include systems thinking, the ability to understand and improve dynamics and interactions among different components of a single system.
The popularity of interdisciplinary thinking in the workplace explains why universities and educational institutions are redesigning degree requirements. The rise of interdisciplinary majors, like computational biology, bioinformatics, or digital humanities, accelerated since 2010. Renowned curricula, like the Symbolic Systems major at Stanford, Computational Media at Georgia Tech, and Science, Technology, and Society (STS) at MIT, are all examples of renowned educational programs that produce alumni who retain interdisciplinary skillsets. According to Stanford, these majors are designed to allow flexibility for students among the different disciplines.
Indeed, graduates of interdisciplinary majors have pursued a variety of fields. For example, Stanford’s Symbolic Systems graduates pursue roles in product management, entrepreneurship, healthcare technology, consulting, and more — an unexpected amount of diversity for graduates of traditional majors.
Numerous industry leaders today started their professional journey after an interdisciplinary education. Reid Hoffman, a graduate of Symbolic Systems, is the founder of the networking platform LinkedIn and also a renowned venture capitalist. As an individual with successes in multiple fields of his career, he has cited his interdisciplinary education as a source for his understanding across fields.
However, critics from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine worry that studying disparate topics over the same four years diminishes the level of depth in understanding for each discipline. The difficult nature of assessing understanding worsens this problem. According to Professor Julie Klein, the interdisciplinary nature of learning makes it harder to evaluate the understanding of graduates for employment or graduate education. In addition, students often need to navigate their own pathway in a course system that provides so much flexibility. Students with less personal conviction on what they want to pursue may become lost in the different possibilities of interdisciplinary programs.
While interdisciplinary programs present challenges for assessments of proficiency and require personal incentive to navigate the diverse curricula, the long-term benefits in career flexibility, real-world problem solving and development of skillsets favored by employers makes it a competitive choice for prospective students and young adults.
