Interdisciplinary-unfriendly colleges

[sandokan]

It seems easy enough to find colleges that make a point of talking about how they are pro-interdisciplinary majors / open to collaboration between departments, etc… I’m thinking Brown and CMU. Is there a go-to metric I can look up on the CDS that would be a good indicator of the college NOT being especially open to this sort of approach? I’m thinking maybe percent of double majors though that’s not exactly interdisciplinary, more just doing more than one thing. Mostly wondering as I think my son will prefer a more flexible approach and this seems like a potentially good filter.

[Shelby_Balik]

Not really a metric, but here are a few things you can look for that would indicate a more or less flexible curriculum:

• Colleges with extensive general studies curriculum would allow less flexibility for double majors. Are there a lot of specific requirements, or are there a few distribution requirements that can be fulfilled in multiple ways? Can you double-dip (i.e., using a course in the major to satisfy a general study requirement)? If so, then that indicates more flexibility.
• Is there a possibility for an independently designed major? If not, then this is not a college that encourages unconventional approaches.
• Look at the catalog: are there lots of programs with the word “studies” in their titles? (Africana Studies, Environmental Studies, Religious Studies, etc.) These are programs that may or may not be stand-alone departments, but they’ll include faculty from multiple departments and will encourage interdisciplinary approaches. If a catalog doesn’t include programs like this, that’s a sign that the school doesn’t encourage interdisciplinary study.
• What majors is your kid interested in? Look at the coursework some would require, including prerequisites. Even in a college that encourages interdisciplinary study, some majors will require more coursework (engineering, teaching certification, some STEM fields with lots of prerequisites, or humanities fields that require foreign languages). These majors might leave less room for double-majoring (though the extra requirements could be interdisciplinary).
• Does the college require something in addition to a major (like a minor, a certificate, a concentration, or something)? That might leave a bit less flexibility, or it could allow for more, if the additional programs are interdisciplinary.
• In larger schools, are there divisions (colleges or institutes) that bring a number of departments together for interdisciplinary collaboration? Wesleyan (though not a large school) is especially well-known for this (see: College of Social Studies, College of the Environment, etc.).

[NiceUnparticularMan]

I think this is an interesting question because while there is a long list of positive indicators you can look for, I am not sure there are any really good negative indicators. As you point out, for example, double majors are not necessarily really the best way to do interdisciplinary studies anyway. Like I think it would usually be preferable to actually have a primary major, or perhaps a designated track/concentration within a major, which itself is interdisciplinary, such that you would then still have credits left to add even more interesting stuff outside that major. I also think interdisciplinary minors which are designed to combine with certain primary majors can be a good option while preserving credits, and so on.

So unfortunately, I do think maybe this is something where you really just need to dig into college, subdivision, and departmental pages and see what they offer. In my experience it very quickly becomes apparent which ones have built-in options for primary majors, minors, tracks, concentrations, and so on that cross disciplines, departments, and often subdivisions. Like, even if they have separate admissions to Arts & Science, Business, and Engineering, you can still find interdisciplinary majors in Arts & Sciences with designated core classes in Business or Engineering, or even available minors which do not require admission to the other subdivisions.

But how do you identify the schools that are less like that? I think after a while you sort of know it when you see it. Usually although not always a robust core/general ed requirement, and then not a lot of stuff that crosses disciplines, and it eventually stands out in contrast to the schools which really make a point of making it easy to be interdisciplinary.

[merc81]

Colleges have approached this partly through architectural design in recent years. The presence of an inviting atrium in the main science building, for example, suggests interdisciplinary ambitions. Whereas the lack of such a feature may be limiting.