Comment by galleywest200
13 hours ago
When I was in school we were educated in STEM alongside the humanities, they called this being "interdisciplinary".
One of my undergraduate chemistry professors went to Cal Tech and he told us that his professors encouraged him to ask people outside of his discipline about problems if he got stuck.
I do not understand why people are unwilling to do more interdisciplinary studies. When I took courses on crop botany and plant genetics we also read books and had seminar to discuss the topics of the books - that is a humanities skill, to discuss in a group what meaning you can derive from texts.
As for the people saying you should get a degree that pays well...look at all the folks who got Comp. Sci. degrees who are now being thrown in the wood chipper. Was that worth it? Time will tell.
Sure, but to be fair to STEM fields, group discussions aren't uniquely a humanities skill. Collectively ripping apart a scientific journal article to find all of its flaws is a common activity.
Interdisciplinary study is great but there can be some friction in the labor market, at least for new graduates seeking entry level positions. When corporate recruiters see a college transcript that doesn't fit neatly into one of the usual slots they don't know what to do with it.
Computer Science also has its own friction with the labor market. It's really a branch of abstract mathematics and only tangentially related to commercial software product development. I think colleges ought to offer something like a "Bachelor of Fine Arts in Software Development" for students more interested in practical craftsmanship. There will always be demand for people who can build working software, even if most of them move up to higher levels of abstraction leveraging AI tools instead of directly writing code themselves.
My CS college told us bluntly: 'We're training you for the last job you'll ever have. Pick up the stuff you need to know for your first one on your own or while doing class projects.'
Worked out pretty well in my case. There's plenty I don't know about the Java Enterprise Edition standard libraries, but I can still walk through computing in decent depth from transistors to algorithms.
(And to the article's point, have probably gotten more CS jobs from my interdisciplinary skills than my CS-only skills)
Interdisciplinary is a broad umbrella term that most people fall under to some degree. The benefit of focusing on a primary discipline is that there are well worn career paths to follow. I think the best approach is to brand yourself to one or two disciplines, and look for collaboration opportunities with other disciplines. Study them for enrichment and inspiration. Have friends and colleagues outside of your discipline.
If someone says they are "interdisciplinary" it provides little information about what they actually study and are good at. If someone says they have a Masters in Philosophy with a focus on Metaphysics I have enough information about their background to ask questions they might provide insightful comments on.