So, Kiana’s comment got me thinking more and more about the importance of interdisciplinary awareness. I think it would be safe to say that there is no such thing as a particular field of study or major that is entirely a stand-alone discipline.
Each field of study has a history and many (if not all) have underlying philosophies. Most require the ability to have a good grasp of a language. Some fields are naturally more “interdisciplinary” than others, such as international relations, or environmental studies. Then there are other fields like journalism that almost demand some base of knowledge in another field (you better understand politics if that’s your beat, same goes for other areas like sports and arts.) Overall however, I think we often forget how all these different fields of study are connected, and that the ties between them all are important.
I heard somewhere that the average American changes their career roughly 3-5 times in their lifetime and that this number is expected to increase in the future. Yes, that’s “career” change, not “job” change. This kind of makes me wonder why anyone would want specific training in something incredibly specific? What if your knowledge base is in something that could become obsolete in 10 years (i.e. a computer programming language)?
Here are a few things to consider:
-Think about the different areas within our own field of study (or career) and the ways they are connected.
-Think about other fields of study and how they are connected to our own focus.
-Stay “on top” of the trends in your field! Will you need to gain new skills to keep up with the growing knowledge base?
So…now to tie this in to our class readings… J
Kolb (experiential learning theory) observed that fields of study tend to have a prevalent way of thinking (which is then passed on to everyone within that field or major). On one hand, I agree that it’s important to have the necessary skills within your area of study and continue to develop those skills…on the other hand, imagine what can be gained if you’re able to expand from your point of view! This is where I will put in my plug for the liberal arts education. If I’m not mistaken, the idea behind the liberal arts curriculum is to help students develop analytical skills that can be applied to any knowledge base, as opposed to being immersed in just one area of study. Yes, you have your “major” (and actually, my college required that you minor in something else as well…to further promote the idea of interdisciplinary learning), but the core of the curriculum is one is one that encourages you to analyze these ties and these different ways of thinking.
As I continue this blog, I’m seeing a big trend in my thoughts and discussion regarding the influence of technology on society. Technology influences everyone. I’m getting increasingly interested in technology as it relates to a mode of thinking. The Seattle Post is now strictly an online newspaper, and given the current economic crisis, more and more papers may have to turn to the online mode. We can find out about almost any topic with a few keystrokes and a click. Yes, this all feeds into our consumerist, “I want to know NOW!” mindset, but what other things are being influenced? I was talking to a friend a couple weeks ago about online dating – I encouraged her to give it a try – why not? Many of them require you to take some type of personality inventory of sorts to “match” you with someone else – maybe it does a better job for you than you could by meeting people at a bar, you know?
Anyhow, I digress. This is where I was going…back in 8th grade I wrote my papers by hand, and then typed it on some sort of type-writer or word processor. Then once I got to college, I would write a little by hand, then type it out. Then I’d print the page out, read it and edit it, then write more by hand, then type it in, etc. At this point, I was still writing it out by hand, but typing it out in sections, editing as I went. Since I started graduate school, I’ve found that I’m capable of writing and editing papers almost entirely online. Instead of thinking with pencil in my hand, I now think with my fingers resting on my keyboard, my eyes on a bright screen. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about what this change means! –But it’s certainly got me thinking. It almost makes me feel even more reliant on my computer. (Remember those days before everyone had a cell phone? Wow.)
That’s all for now!
I love this discussion. I work at a small two-year college in Georgia, and getting students to understand the value of their liberal arts degree is, er, challenging, at best. Rather than focus on the benefits of the work they do at our school--taking advantage of our resources, small class size, and knowledgeable faculty--our students are absolutely obsessed with and distracted by their mission to transfer to the big university down the street. Terms like critical thinking and active learning are Greek to them, so framing the discussion with talk of focused knowledge for future jobs and careers versus broad, transferable and analytical skills is helpful (Fisch and McLeod's Shifthappens/"Did You Know" video is also helpful).
ReplyDeleteI came to student affairs after training to be a therapist and happened upon your blog one day while researching student development theories. I'm finding that, while it's (obviously) a good idea to consider the theories and use them to frame your thinking, they are REALLY hard to concretely integrate into daily work and programs. ...I supposed they warn you about that in school... Anyway, your posts are very insightful and interesting -- thanks!!