The Arguement for Interdisciplinary Studies

Kayla Reed
IDST 4114
7/8/09
Prof. Augustine

Arguments for Interdisciplinary Studies


Interdisciplinary studies rest upon serious conceptual confusion (Benson).

Although studying and learning about one subject does allow a student to excel better in that subject, Interdisciplinary students are better well-rounded than they are because they learn about many different subjects and not just one. They are more apt to gain more knowledge not just in things dealing with school but with things that we have to deal with and face in our everyday lives. Interdisciplinary students take can take a problem and solve it by thinking of all the different ways that you could solve the problem through different disciplines. In the end more companies and businesses would much rather hire a person who was skilled in many different things, and is a better-rounded person than someone who only knows a lot about one subject.


Interdisciplinary Studies students lack a mature base in any discipline (Benson).

As interdisciplinary students we do not only have a firm hand on one subject we have a firm hand on two or more. We have a lot of knowledge in subjects that will best benefit us in the future and our everyday lives, and not just when we need it in school. Benson argues that in order to be ready for a career after college is done; the student needs to have increasing amounts of course work in the major program. Well, as interdisciplinary students we spend just as much time as other students in different majors do, only we broaden our ideas, theories, and thoughts. We want to feel like we are better at more things than other students which will one day really benefit us as people when we begin our careers.


The commitment to undergraduate interdisciplinary studies programs impeded students’ development of disciplinary competence (Benson). Interdisciplinary studies is a dumping ground for the less than disciplinary competent (Petrie).

Like I argued before, we as interdisciplinary students always have enough time to do all of the educational things our major suggests we do. There are much more jobs in our society who would rather have highly trained professionals in many different things, instead of being just highly trained in one thing. An engineer for example might be good working for an engineer company but if they are not skilled in other things, and are well-rounded people than they will not succeed at their job. A company probably feels like they can train them how to be a good engineer, but they can not train them in how to be good at more than one thing or be a well-rounded person.

Interdisciplinary studies courses are shallow and lack intellectual rigor (Benson).

Since all the other majors only teach one subject to their students, faculty probably find themselves feeling like they are preaching to their students the information instead of just showing them or putting them in real life situations. As interdisciplinarians we are taught more ideas, concepts, and different ways to think which will in turn greater benefit us in the future when we go out into the real world and each begin our own careers. In our major we are taught to think outside of the box whereas other majors are taught only what they have to know to succeed. We learn what we need to know and much more to help us succeed.

The level of scholarship seldom exceeds that of a “glorified bull session” (Petrie).

This is by far the most argumentative topic that has been brought up so far. Interdisciplinary student’s way of thinking is on a much higher level and is more open than any other student in a different major. We think more outside of the box and are open to much more things than other students because we are taught more things and are taught to be open and think differently. Just because other students spend more time on one subject than interdisciplinary students doesn’t exactly make them smarter it just shows that they are only open to one subject and are not very well-rounded people.