What is Interdisciplinary Studies?

If you’re look­ing to earn an under­grad­u­ate degree, there are many com­mon, pop­u­lar majors you’ve heard of. Peo­ple often study psy­chol­o­gy, jour­nal­ism, edu­ca­tion, hard sci­ence, or busi­ness, but there are oth­er options. One major you might be less famil­iar with is inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies. So what is inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies? Here’s the inter­dis­ci­pli­nary def­i­n­i­tion from Dictionary.com, who calls it an aca­d­e­m­ic program:

“Com­bin­ing two or more aca­d­e­m­ic dis­ci­plines or fields of study.”

In inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies pro­grams, you’ll likely:

• Choose from a Bach­e­lor of Arts or Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence degree.
• Plan your path and what dis­ci­plines you’ll take with the help of an aca­d­e­m­ic advisor.
• Choose from pro­grams that allow you to take your inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies pro­gram online, on-cam­pus, or in a hybrid of the two.
• Pick con­cen­tra­tions or tracks that align with your edu­ca­tion­al and career goals yet don’t lim­it you from study­ing oth­er dis­ci­plines out­side of them.

You can find out what is inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies for your­self right here in our rank­ing of the Top 30 Bach­e­lor’s in Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Stud­ies pro­grams. If you like a pro­gram, by request­ing more infor­ma­tion on it you can begin the process of apply­ing to it.

So clear­ly, what inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies is to you will depend large­ly on what you want to study. An inter­dis­ci­pli­nary def­i­n­i­tion is one you cre­ate and cus­tomize for your­self, with the aid of expe­ri­enced sup­port staff. How­ev­er, there are core out­comes that you can expect from an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies pro­gram. These include:

• Increase your crit­i­cal think­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing skills.
• Gain a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the chal­lenges fac­ing dif­fer­ent peo­ple around the world in a num­ber of dif­fer­ent areas, and what can be done to help them.
• Expose you to a vari­ety of edu­ca­tion­al disciplines.
• Learn how to do aca­d­e­m­ic research and apply it to your writing.
• Build a var­ied net­work of aca­d­e­mics and pro­fes­sion­als in diverse fields that can aid each oth­er in their careers.

What is (and isn’t) inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies to you will have a lot to do with the school you select, its offer­ings and restric­tions, and your own cre­ativ­i­ty. Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies degrees fea­ture a lot more inter­ac­tion between you and aca­d­e­m­ic advi­sors. Your abil­i­ty to get an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary degree that best match­es your inter­est will have a lot to do with how con­vinc­ing you are about how cer­tain inter­ests, cours­es, and learn­ing expe­ri­ences fit into an over­ar­ch­ing degree plan. You’ll fig­ure out how to sell advi­sors on your vision for your edu­ca­tion, a skill which will be extreme­ly use­ful in all aspects of your life.

Your inter­dis­ci­pli­nary def­i­n­i­tion begins with find­ing a Bach­e­lor’s in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies on our excel­lent rank­ing of thir­ty of the top pro­grams. When you find a pro­gram you think fits you, you can request more infor­ma­tion from it and start plan­ning out your inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies degree by talk­ing to the advis­ing and/or sup­port staff who will over­see it.

What is inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies? More­so than with oth­er majors it will be up to you, your imag­i­na­tion and abil­i­ty to exe­cute. We’ve giv­en you a great head­start on our rank­ing. Good luck!

Relat­ed:

Top 30 Best Bachelor’s in Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Studies

Top 15 Bach­e­lor of Lib­er­al Arts Degree Programs

Top 15 Online Bach­e­lor of Lib­er­al Arts Degree Programs